Her journey to the cutting edge of biotechnology research has taken Kan Wang halfway around the globe. As one of the industry’s leading biotechnology researchers, Dr. Wang is working to transform corn into medicines from a laboratory at Iowa State University.

When Dr. Kan Wang was a graduate candidate in Shanghai, China, she knew she wanted to be involved in the forefront of genetic research and to her that meant the human genome. But an opportunity to pursue her doctorate in Europe changed her focus. “I had the opportunity to study in Belgium with some of the pioneers in plant genetics,” she says. Her newfound interest would take her again halfway around the world to Iowa where she worked first for a seed company and then on to Ames where she is now an associate professor in agronomy at Iowa State University.

Surrounded by a sea of corn, which is fine with her, Wang is one of the industry’s leading plant biotechnology researchers and advocates for the promise of corn research. “Corn is a remarkable plant,” she says. “And biotechnology makes it more efficient on all fronts. If we can introduce genes to produce higher-quality starch and more starch, farmers will be able to produce more choices for the consumer.”

Wang is leading a research project investigating ways to use corn as a medium to produce animal vaccines. If successful, the research will one day lead to antigens being grown in corn plants under carefully controlled conditions. For the pharmaceutical industry, her work may result in a new process to produce medicines that are safer and more cost-effective than those produced using animal tissue or bacterial culture as a growth medium.

“We are at a very exciting period of development in all areas of biotechnology,” she says. “We’re obtaining information at a pace that’s almost scary.”

Despite the promise of biotechnology, Wang understands the speed of its development is uncomfortable to some, but she believes that’s because it’s not fully understood by all. She believes most confusion over biotechnology can be cleared up through education and information. She describes her approach analytically, as if plotting it on a graph.

“Anxiety increases when there is much awareness but little knowledge; it declines when knowledge increases,” she says. “If you know a little bit but don’t have a lot of knowledge, the level of anxiety increases. If you don’t get the whole picture, you have a lot of anxiety.”

If we can ease the anxiety of consumers with information and education, Wang sees unlimited potential for the promise of biotechnology.