Flossie Wong-Staal: a Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist, credited with co-discovering HIV along with Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier in 1984. Wong-Staal, the first woman in her family to attend college, graduated magna cum from UCLA. In 1985, she was credited with being the first to successfully clone HIV. Her work and research helped to develop tests that would screen people for the virus, and in 1990, she became the chair in AIDS research at the University of California at San Diego, where she began researching a vaccine and treatment. In 2002, she left this position to co-found the biopharmaceutical company Immusol, where she began working to develop drugs for infectious diseases. Her research also consisted of developing a drug that could decrease the reproductive cycle of the AIDS virus.
Major General Antonio Taguba: the second-highest-ranking Filipino American in the U.S. Army and a major component in uncovering the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Taguba, assigned by a senior military official in Iraq to report on the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, published a controversial report in which he confirmed the extreme inhumane treatment of prisoners. Shortly after, Taguba was reassigned to the Pentagon, and on January 2006, he was instructed by Gen. Richard A. Cody to retire by January 2007. It was alleged that among senior officials, Taguba was considered to have been "overzealous" and "disloyal". Taguba's forced retirement ended his 34-year career in the military. However, to members of the Asian community and beyond, Taguba's courage to speak out about an inhumane issue evokes much pride.
Vera Wang: a Chinese-American fashion designer who has gained notability for her wedding dresses, which have been worn by celebrities such as Mariah Carey, Sharon Stone and Jennifer Lopez. Wang has also designed figure-skating costumes worn by Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan, evening wear and ready-to-wear. Most recently, Wang has delved into the home-fashion industry with The Vera Wang China and Crystal collection.
Jerry Yang: an entrepreneur and cofounder of Yahoo, which began as a personal directory of other web sites. After it opened to the public, the web site gained millions of users. Within four years, Yahoo was an $11-billion business. To date, Yahoo is still among the top search engines and Internet directories. Yang ranked 432 on Forbes' list of richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of $2.2 billion.
Sources: Info.com, Wikipedia.org, Pepsico.com, Yo-YoMa.com and NYTimes.com
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