Yang, Xiangzhong "Jerry" - Storrs, CT

Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang

Storrs, CT

N 41° 48.796 W 072° 15.457

The grave of of embryologist and reproductive biologist Professor Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang is located in Storrs Cemetery, North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT. His  grave is marked by a polished black granite headstone shaped like a book that has a laser engraved image of the picture of him with the cloned calf named Amy. The headstone is inscribed:

XIANGZHONG (JERRY) YANG

July 31, 1959 - February 5, 2009

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Scientist, educator,leader, social

activist, entrepreneur, family man.

Bring day to night,

A scholar of life itself,

Shaping hopes and dreams.

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Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang was born into a poor family in Hebei in rural China on July 31, 1959. He graduated from Beijing Agricultural University, and earned a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in 1991. He then became a research faculty member at Cornell University as an embryologist at the Cornell Biotechnology Center. He then took a position with the University of Connecticut at Storrs, CT as an associate professor. In 2001, he was appointed as the founding director of the University's Center for Regenerative Biology.

Yang was best known as the scientist who cloned the first farm animal in North America at the University of Connecticut in 1999, a Holstein calf named Amy. He showed that cloned animals were safe to eat and started a non-profit company which shipped embryos from champion dairy cows to farmers in China.

Yang made many other contributions to the science of embryology. He showed how old cells can become young again when fused into embryos or eggs stripped of DNA. He laid the groundwork for creating embryonic stem cells that are an exact match of patients that could be used to treat patients with such diseases as cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

During his career, Yang produced 121 research works that were cited by other scientist in their work 4939 times. He achieved these many accomplishments despite the fact that he was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer in 1997, a disease he battled until his death on February 5, 2009. He died at the age of 49.

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