Tsai-Fan Yu

Tsai-Fan Yu (Chinese: 郁采蘩, 1911- March 2, 2007) was a physician, researcher, and the first woman to be appointed as a full professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Yu helped to develop the explanation for the cause of gout and experimented with early drugs to treat the disease which are still in use today.

Early life and education

Professor Tsai-Fan Yu, MD was born in Shanghai, China in 1911. As a sophomore at Gin Ling College in China, Yu was admitted into Peking Union Medical College on full scholarship and received her medical degree with highest honors in 1939. In the same year, Yu became the Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at Peking Union Medical College.

Career and research

Yu came to New York in 1947 and taught at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons until joining the staff faculty at Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1957 where she would spend the rest of her career. In 1973, Yu became the first female to be appointed as a full professor at Mount Sinai Hospital, one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in The United States.

Yu conducted extensive research in which was continuously funded by the NIH for 26 years and she helped to establish the understanding a metabolic relationship between elevated levels of uric acid and the pain experienced by gout patients. She developed medicines that have been proven to be a successful for treating gout such as probenecid, a [uricosuric] drug which causes the removal of excess uric acid by being excreted with urine. In addition, Yu helped to establish a groundbreaking clinic at Mount Sinai for the treatment of gout, one of the first gout clinics in the United States at Mount Sinai. She later conducted a five- year study in which she discovered colchicine, an anti-inflammatory drug that prevents recurring attacks of acute gout. In the 1960s, Yu further developed studies of gout’s mechanisms and soon discovered allopurinol, a drug that helps to prevent the formation of uric acid and used in treating gout and kidney stones. While at Mount Sinai Hospital, Yu helped to establish one of the first systemized laboratory tests for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis in which she later won the Master Award from the American Association of Rheumatology. In 1982, Yu published the book called The Kidney in Gout and Hyperuricemia. Being the first female to be appointed as Full Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, she retired with Professor Emeritus status in 1992 at age 81. Professor Yu, MD was also awarded the Distinguished Career Achievement Award from Mount Sinai Medical Center. Yu was awarded Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. In 2004, The Tsai- Fan Yu Foundation was established as a domestic, not-for-profit corporation. This charitable organization is a philanthropy, voluntarism, and grantmaking foundation serving purposes including religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. Dr. Tsai- Fan Yu died at age 95 in March 2007 due to respiratory complications at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.