James C. Wang is a biochemist who trained as a chemical engineer before turning to biophysical chemistry and molecular biology. Wang discovered deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) topoisomerases (or local enzymes) and proposed a mechanism for their operation in the 1970s. He also studied the configuration (or topology) of DNA, an approach that proved fruitful in helping to explain how the structure of the double helix coils and relaxes.

Wang was born in mainland China on November 18, 1936. Less than a year later the Sino-Japanese War began. Wang lost his mother during the conflict, and shortly after it ended, his older sister also died. His father remarried, moving the family to Taiwan in 1949. Because of the war, Wang received only about two years of elementary education before starting junior high school in Taiwan. As a child, he wanted to study medicine, but his father encouraged him to become an engineer. A...