Guo-Fang Pang Wins AOAC International's 2014 Harvey W. Wiley Award

AOAC International (Gaithersburg, Maryland) has named Guo-Fang Pang as the recipient of the 2014 Harvey W. Wiley Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to analytical chemistry. Pang will accept the award—AOAC’s highest scientific honor—at the opening session of the 128th AOAC International Annual Meeting & Exposition in Boca Raton, Florida, September 7-10, 2014. He also will deliver the Wiley Award Address at the Wiley Award Symposium on Monday, September 8.

Pang, chief scientist, of the Chinese Academy of Inspection and quarantine (Beijing, China), receives the award in acknowledgment of his work in the analysis of pesticide residues in agricultural products. He has been inspecting agricultural products and foodstuffs for nearly 30 years, with a particular eye to veterinary drugs and pesticide residues. He is spearheading a testing program that has helped get Chinese honey, chicken, brown rice, and tea approved by world markets. Pang has led AOAC collaborative studies and established AOAC official methods. Recently, he developed gas chromatography– quadrupole-time-of-flight –mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography–quadrupole-time-of-flight–mass spectrometry methods for the simultaneous detection of as many as 1138 pesticide residues and other contaminants in single samples of fruits and vegetables.

Pang’s leading accomplishments include the development of an AOAC method for determination of multiresidue pesticides of synthetic pyrethroids in agricultural products by gas chromatography (official method 998.01); an AOAC method for monitoring clopidol (a veterinary drug) in chicken tissues by liquid chromatography (official method 2003.04); methods for more than 300 potential pesticide residues in Chinese honey, including a stable carbon isotope method to prove that Chinese honey actually comes from Chinese flowers; China’s first high-throughput method for the simultaneous determination of more than 1000 pesticide residues in agricultural products. He also organized an AOAC collaborative study for high-throughput analysis of over 653 pesticide residues in teas, in which 30 international laboratories from 11 countries and regions were represented.

Pang also has had eight technical works on food safety published by domestic and international press, and more than 100 papers published.

He is a Fellow of AOAC International (2007) and recipient of a Collaborative Study of the Year Award (1998), Associate Referee of the Year Award (1998), and Study Director of the Year Award (2002). Pang has been a member of AOAC since 1994.

Pang graduated from Hebei University in Tianjin in 1968, specializing in chemistry. The son of peasant farmers growing up in rural China in the 1940s and ‘50s, Pang is the second college student ever produced by his village.

The Harvey W. Wiley Award, AOAC International's most prestigious scientific award, is presented annually to recognize career achievements in advancing analytical methodology. The award was established in 1956 to honor Harvey W. Wiley, who was instrumental in the institution of laws regulating food quality. Wiley was a founder of AOAC International and served as AOAC president in 1886, secretary from 1889 to 1912, and honorary president until his death in 1930.