Wu Mengchao

Dr. Wu Mengchao (Chinese: 吴孟超; 31 August 1922 – 22 May 2021) was a Chinese surgeon and a medical scientist who specialized in hepatobiliary surgery. He was also known as the "Father of Chinese Hepatobiliary Surgery". Wu was born in Minqing County, Fuzhou, China. In 1940, he was admitted to 同济附中 (tong ji fu zhong), a high school affiliated to Tongji University. In 1949, he graduated from Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991 and was awarded the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award in 2005, China's highest scientific prize, by President Hu Jintao. He was the founding director of Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital affiliated to the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai. On 1 January 2019, Wu retired. Wu proposed the new perspectives on liver anatomy, invented the a new operation of intermittent interruption of the Porta Hepatis at room temperature, and established the complete hepatobiliary diagnostic system and several hepatobiliary specialist hospitals in China. At 13:02 on 22 May 2021, Wu Mengchao died in Shanghai at the age of 99. The minor planet 17606 Wumengchao was named after him.