Roger Y. Tsien
Encyclopedia
Roger Yonchien Tsien ( born February 1, 1952) is a Chinese American biochemist
and a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego
. He was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry
"for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein
(GFP
) with two other chemists: Martin Chalfie
of Columbia University
and Osamu Shimomura
of Boston University
and Marine Biological Laboratory
.
of the Kingdom of Wuyue. According to historic records, Tsien is the 34th-generational grandson of the King Qian Liu
(Tsien Liu).
Tsien had a number of accomplished engineers in his extended family, including his father Hsue-Chu Tsien
who was a mechanical engineer and his mother's brothers who were engineering professors at MIT. Both of Tsien's parents came from Zhejiang Province, China. The famous rocket scientist Tsien Hsue-shen
, regarded as the co-founding father of JPL of Caltech and later the director of the Chinese ballistic-missile
and space
programs, is a cousin of Tsien's father. Tsien's brother Richard Tsien
is also a renowned scientist at Stanford
. Tsien, who calls his own work molecular engineering, once said, "I'm doomed by heredity to do this kind of work."
Tsien was born in New York, in 1952. He grew up in Livingston, New Jersey
and attended Livingston High School
there.
Tsien suffered from asthma as a child, and as a result, he was often indoors. He spent hours conducting chemistry experiments in his basement laboratory. When he was 16, he won first prize in the nationwide Westinghouse talent search
with a project investigating how metals bind to thiocyanate.
He attended Harvard University
on a National Merit Scholarship, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry
and physics
in 1972. According to his freshman-year roommate, economist and Iowa politician Herman Quirmbach
, “It’s probably not an exaggeration to say he’s the smartest person I ever met... [a]nd I have met a lot of brilliant people.”
After completing his bachelor's degree, he joined the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge
, England with the aid of a Marshall Scholarship
. He received his PhD in physiology
from Churchill College, University of Cambridge in 1977, with the doctoral dissertation The Design and Use of Organic Chemical Tools in Cellular Physiology (1976) supervised by Prof. Jeremy Sanders
.
Tsien was a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge from 1977 to 1981. He was appointed to the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley
, from 1982 to 1989. Since 1989 he has been working at the University of California, San Diego
, as Professor of Pharmacology and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
.
In 2004, Tsien was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine
"for his seminal contribution to the design and biological application of novel fluorescent and photolabile molecules to analyze and perturb cell signal transduction."
In 2008, Tsien shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura
and Martin Chalfie
for "the green fluorescent protein: discovery, expression and development."
developed in Tsien's lab are used by scientists to track where and when certain genes are expressed in cells or in whole organisms. Typically, the gene coding for a protein of interest is fused with the gene for a fluorescent protein, which causes the protein of interest to glow inside the cell and allows microscopists to track its location in real time. This is such a popular technique that it has added a new dimension to the fields of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry.
Since the discovery of the wild type
GFP
, numerous different mutants of GFP have been engineered and tested. The first significant leap forward was a single point mutation
(S65T) reported by Tsien in 1995 in Nature. This mutation dramatically improved the fluorescent (both intensity
and photostability
) and spectral characteristics of GFP. A shift of the major excitation peak to 488 nm with the emission peak staying at 509 nm thus can be clearly observed, which matched very well the spectral characteristics of commonly available FITC
facilities. All these then largely amplified the practicality of using GFP by scientists in their research. Tsien mainly contributed to much of our understanding of how GFP works and for developing new techniques and mutants of GFP.
Former trainees include Atsushi Miyawaki and Alice Y. Ting
.
Timelines of GFP-development involved by Tsien:
Other detailed highlights involved by Tsien:
In 2009, a new kind of IFP was developed by Tsien's group, and further reported and described by Science
. The new IFPs are developed from bacterial phytochrome
s instead of from multicellular organism
like jellyfish
. Under normal conditions, bacterial phytochromes absorb light for signaling instead of fluorescence, but they can be turned fluorescent after deleting some of the signaling parts by genetic
means such as site-directed mutagenesis
. In order to fluorescence, tetrapyrrole
is also required, however, it's abundant in living bodies.
and well known for developing various dyes which change color in the presence of particular ions such as calcium. One such dye, Fura-2
, is widely used to track the movement of calcium within cells. Indo-1
, another popular calcium indicator, was also developed by Tsien's group in 1985.
Aequorin
is also a useful tool to indicate calcium level inside cells; however, it has some limitations, primarily is that its prosthetic group coelenterazine is consumed irreversibly when emits light, thus requires continuous addition of coelenterazine into the media. To overcome such issues, Tsien's group also developed the calmodulin
-based sensor, named Cameleon
.
s. The peptides are used as probes, and are harmless to living tissues and organs. Their lifetime in the body is only 4 or 5 days. The human testing
is hoped to be ready within two or three years.
. Similarly, Tsien was also a scientific co-founder of Senomyx
in 1999.
Dr. Tsien also helps promote science education to promising young scientists through the first-ever San Diego Science Festival Lunch with a Laureate Program.
Biochemist
Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. The prefix of "bio" in "biochemist" can be understood as a fusion of "biological chemist."-Role:...
and a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
. He was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
"for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein
Green fluorescent protein
The green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the...
(GFP
Green fluorescent protein
The green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the...
) with two other chemists: Martin Chalfie
Martin Chalfie
Martin Chalfie is an American scientist. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where he is also chair of the department of biological sciences. He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien "for the...
of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and Osamu Shimomura
Osamu Shimomura
is a Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist, and Professor Emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Boston University Medical School...
of Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
and Marine Biological Laboratory
Marine Biological Laboratory
The Marine Biological Laboratory is an international center for research and education in biology, biomedicine and ecology. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest independent marine laboratory in the Americas, taking advantage of a coastal setting in the Cape Cod village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts...
.
Personal life
Tsien and his family are descendants of the royal familyRoyal family
A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
of the Kingdom of Wuyue. According to historic records, Tsien is the 34th-generational grandson of the King Qian Liu
Qian Liu
Qian Liu , courtesy name Jumei , nickname Poliu , formally King Wusu of Wuyue with the temple name of Taizu , was founder and first king of the Kingdom of Wuyue during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, ruling over roughly modern Zhejiang on the east coast of China.- Background :Qian...
(Tsien Liu).
Tsien had a number of accomplished engineers in his extended family, including his father Hsue-Chu Tsien
Hsue-Chu Tsien
Hsue-Chu Tsien, COL , was an aeronautic and mechanical engineer who played important roles in aircraft building in both China and afterward the United States.-Biography:...
who was a mechanical engineer and his mother's brothers who were engineering professors at MIT. Both of Tsien's parents came from Zhejiang Province, China. The famous rocket scientist Tsien Hsue-shen
Tsien Hsue-shen
Qian Xuesen was a scientist who made important contributions to the missile and space programs of both the United States and People's Republic of China. Historical documents in the U. S. commonly refer to him with the earlier family-name last spelling, Hsue-Shen Tsien or H.S...
, regarded as the co-founding father of JPL of Caltech and later the director of the Chinese ballistic-missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
and space
Chinese space program
The space program of the People's Republic of China is directed by the China National Space Administration . Its technological roots can be traced back to the late 1950s, when the People's Republic began a rudimentary ballistic missile program in response to perceived American threats...
programs, is a cousin of Tsien's father. Tsien's brother Richard Tsien
Richard W. Tsien
Richard Winyu Tsien , is a renowned American neurobiologist. Tsien is the George D. Smith Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. On January 2012, Dr...
is also a renowned scientist at Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. Tsien, who calls his own work molecular engineering, once said, "I'm doomed by heredity to do this kind of work."
Tsien was born in New York, in 1952. He grew up in Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 29,366.Livingston was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 5, 1813, from portions of Caldwell Township and Springfield...
and attended Livingston High School
Livingston High School (New Jersey)
Livingston High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grade from Livingston, in Essex County, New Jersey, operating as part of the Livingston Public Schools. It receives all eighth grade graduates from Heritage Middle School...
there.
Tsien suffered from asthma as a child, and as a result, he was often indoors. He spent hours conducting chemistry experiments in his basement laboratory. When he was 16, he won first prize in the nationwide Westinghouse talent search
Intel Science Talent Search
The Intel Science Talent Search , known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is a research-based science competition in the United States for high school seniors. It has been referred to as "the nation's oldest and most prestigious" science competition. In his speech...
with a project investigating how metals bind to thiocyanate.
He attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
on a National Merit Scholarship, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
in 1972. According to his freshman-year roommate, economist and Iowa politician Herman Quirmbach
Herman Quirmbach
Herman C. Quirmbach, Ph.D. is the Iowa State Senator from the 23rd District. A Democrat, he has served in the Iowa Senate since 2003 and served on the Ames City Council from 1995 to 2003. He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. are from Princeton University and is an...
, “It’s probably not an exaggeration to say he’s the smartest person I ever met... [a]nd I have met a lot of brilliant people.”
After completing his bachelor's degree, he joined the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England with the aid of a Marshall Scholarship
Marshall Scholarship
The Marshall Scholarship, a postgraduate scholarships available to Americans, was created by the Parliament of the United Kingdom when the Marshall Aid Commemoration Act was passed in 1953. The scholarships serve as a living gift to the United States of America in recognition of the post-World War...
. He received his PhD in physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
from Churchill College, University of Cambridge in 1977, with the doctoral dissertation The Design and Use of Organic Chemical Tools in Cellular Physiology (1976) supervised by Prof. Jeremy Sanders
Jeremy Sanders
Jeremy Keith Morris Sanders, is a British chemist who is known for his contributions to many fields including NMR spectroscopy and supramolecular chemistry. He has been Head of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Cambridge since 2009; he was also Deputy Vice-Chancellor 2006–2010,...
.
Tsien was a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge from 1977 to 1981. He was appointed to the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, from 1982 to 1989. Since 1989 he has been working at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
, as Professor of Pharmacology and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...
.
Research
Tsien is renowned for revolutionizing the fields of cell biology and neurobiology by allowing scientists to peer inside living cells and watch the behavior of molecules in real time.In 2004, Tsien was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine
Wolf Prize in Medicine
The Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded once a year by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The Prize is probably the third most prestigious award...
"for his seminal contribution to the design and biological application of novel fluorescent and photolabile molecules to analyze and perturb cell signal transduction."
In 2008, Tsien shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura
Osamu Shimomura
is a Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist, and Professor Emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Boston University Medical School...
and Martin Chalfie
Martin Chalfie
Martin Chalfie is an American scientist. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where he is also chair of the department of biological sciences. He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien "for the...
for "the green fluorescent protein: discovery, expression and development."
Development of GFPs and other fluorescent proteins
The multicolored fluorescent proteinsGreen fluorescent protein
The green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the...
developed in Tsien's lab are used by scientists to track where and when certain genes are expressed in cells or in whole organisms. Typically, the gene coding for a protein of interest is fused with the gene for a fluorescent protein, which causes the protein of interest to glow inside the cell and allows microscopists to track its location in real time. This is such a popular technique that it has added a new dimension to the fields of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry.
Since the discovery of the wild type
Wild type
Wild type refers to the phenotype of the typical form of a species as it occurs in nature. Originally, the wild type was conceptualized as a product of the standard, "normal" allele at a locus, in contrast to that produced by a non-standard, "mutant" allele...
GFP
Green fluorescent protein
The green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the...
, numerous different mutants of GFP have been engineered and tested. The first significant leap forward was a single point mutation
Point mutation
A point mutation, or single base substitution, is a type of mutation that causes the replacement of a single base nucleotide with another nucleotide of the genetic material, DNA or RNA. Often the term point mutation also includes insertions or deletions of a single base pair...
(S65T) reported by Tsien in 1995 in Nature. This mutation dramatically improved the fluorescent (both intensity
Light intensity
Several measures of light are commonly known as intensity. These are obtained by dividing either a power or a luminous flux by a solid angle, a planar area, or a combination of the two...
and photostability
Photobleaching
Photobleaching is the photochemical destruction of a fluorophore. In microscopy, photobleaching may complicate the observation of fluorescent molecules, since they will eventually be destroyed by the light exposure necessary to stimulate them into fluorescing...
) and spectral characteristics of GFP. A shift of the major excitation peak to 488 nm with the emission peak staying at 509 nm thus can be clearly observed, which matched very well the spectral characteristics of commonly available FITC
Fluorescein
Fluorescein is a synthetic organic compound available as a dark orange/red powder soluble in water and alcohol. It is widely used as a fluorescent tracer for many applications....
facilities. All these then largely amplified the practicality of using GFP by scientists in their research. Tsien mainly contributed to much of our understanding of how GFP works and for developing new techniques and mutants of GFP.
Former trainees include Atsushi Miyawaki and Alice Y. Ting
Alice Y. Ting
Alice Yen-Ping Ting is a professor of bio-organic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Alice Ting was born in Taiwan and emigrated to the United States when she was three years old. She was raised in Texas and attended the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science . She received...
.
Timelines of GFP-development involved by Tsien:
- 1994: Tsien showed the mechanism that GFP chromophoreChromophoreA chromophore is the part of a molecule responsible for its color. The color arises when a molecule absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light and transmits or reflects others. The chromophore is a region in the molecule where the energy difference between two different molecular orbitals falls...
is formed in a chemical reaction which requires oxygenOxygenOxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
but without help from the other proteins. - 1994–1998: Tsien and collaborators made various GFP mutants by genetic modification and structural tweaking. Newly created variants of GFP can shine more brightly and show different colours, such as yellow, cyan, and blue.
- 2000–2002: Tsien produced stable variants of DsRED, which can glow in shades of red, pink, and orange. Remarkably, since then complicated marcromolecular networks of living organisms can be labelled or marked by using "all the colours of the rainbow".
Other detailed highlights involved by Tsien:
- 2002: The critical structural difference between GFP and DsRed was revealed. One extra double-bond in the chromophore of DsRed extends its conjugation thus causes the red-shift.
- 2002: Monomeric DsRed (mRFP) was first developed.
- 2004: New "fruit" FPs were generated (by in vitro and in vivo directed evolutions).
In 2009, a new kind of IFP was developed by Tsien's group, and further reported and described by Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
. The new IFPs are developed from bacterial phytochrome
Phytochrome
Phytochrome is a photoreceptor, a pigment that plants use to detect light. It is sensitive to light in the red and far-red region of the visible spectrum. Many flowering plants use it to regulate the time of flowering based on the length of day and night and to set circadian rhythms...
s instead of from multicellular organism
Multicellular organism
Multicellular organisms are organisms that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to single-celled organisms. Most life that can be seen with the the naked eye is multicellular, as are all animals and land plants.-Evolutionary history:Multicellularity has evolved independently dozens of times...
like jellyfish
Jellyfish
Jellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. Medusa is another word for jellyfish, and refers to any free-swimming jellyfish stages in the phylum Cnidaria...
. Under normal conditions, bacterial phytochromes absorb light for signaling instead of fluorescence, but they can be turned fluorescent after deleting some of the signaling parts by genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
means such as site-directed mutagenesis
Site-directed mutagenesis
Site-directed mutagenesis, also called site-specific mutagenesis or oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis, is a molecular biology technique in which a mutation is created at a defined site in a DNA molecule. In general, this form of mutagenesis requires that the wild type gene sequence be known...
. In order to fluorescence, tetrapyrrole
Tetrapyrrole
Tetrapyrroles are compounds containing four pyrrole rings. With the exception of corrin, the four pyrrole rings are interconnected through one-carbon bridges, in either a linear or a cyclic fashion...
is also required, however, it's abundant in living bodies.
Calcium imaging
Tsien is a key pioneer of calcium imagingCalcium imaging
Calcium imaging is a scientific technique usually carried out in research which is designed to show the calcium status of a tissue or medium....
and well known for developing various dyes which change color in the presence of particular ions such as calcium. One such dye, Fura-2
Fura-2
Fura-2, a polyamino carboxylic acid, is a ratiometric fluorescent dye which binds to free intracellular calcium. It was the first widely-used dye for calcium imaging, and remains very popular. Fura-2 is excited at 340 nm and 380 nm of light, and the ratio of the emissions at those...
, is widely used to track the movement of calcium within cells. Indo-1
Indo-1
Indo-1 is a popular calcium indicator similar to Fura-2. In contrast to Fura-2, Indo-1 has a dual emissions peak. The main emission peak in calcium-free solution is 475 nm while in the presence of calcium the emission is shifted to 400 nm...
, another popular calcium indicator, was also developed by Tsien's group in 1985.
Aequorin
Aequorin
Aequorin is a photoprotein isolated from luminescent jellyfish and a variety of other marine organisms...
is also a useful tool to indicate calcium level inside cells; however, it has some limitations, primarily is that its prosthetic group coelenterazine is consumed irreversibly when emits light, thus requires continuous addition of coelenterazine into the media. To overcome such issues, Tsien's group also developed the calmodulin
Calmodulin
Calmodulin is a calcium-binding protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells...
-based sensor, named Cameleon
Cameleon
Cameleon is an engineered protein based on variant of green fluorescent protein used to visualize calcium levels in living cells. It is a genetically encoded calcium sensor created by Roger Y. Tsien and coworkers...
.
FlAsH-EDT2
FlAsH-EDT2 is a biochemical method for specific covalent labeling inside live cells. It's a method based on recombinant protein molecules, and was developed by Tsien and his colleagues in 1998.- "FLASH-EDT2": Fluorescein arsenical helix binder, bis-EDT adduct,
- "EDT": 1,2-ethanedithiol.
Fluorescence-assisted cancer surgery
According to experimental (in mouse) results from Tsien's group, cancer surgery can be guided and assisted by fluorescent peptidePeptide
Peptides are short polymers of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds. They are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size, typically containing less than 50 monomer units. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond...
s. The peptides are used as probes, and are harmless to living tissues and organs. Their lifetime in the body is only 4 or 5 days. The human testing
Clinical trial
Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...
is hoped to be ready within two or three years.
Industrial and educational activities
Tsien is also a notable biochemical inventor and holds or co-holds about 100 patents till 2010. In 1996, Tsien co-founded the Aurora Biosciences Corporation, which started its public commerce in 1997. In 2001, Aurora was acquired by the Vertex PharmaceuticalsVertex Pharmaceuticals
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company with activities spanning the length of the pharmaceutical product pipeline, from target identification through to clinical trials and marketing. Most of its activity has been in collaboration with much larger pharmaceutical firms, though some of its...
. Similarly, Tsien was also a scientific co-founder of Senomyx
Senomyx
Senomyx is an American biotechnology company that works toward developing additives to amplify certain flavors and smells in foods...
in 1999.
Dr. Tsien also helps promote science education to promising young scientists through the first-ever San Diego Science Festival Lunch with a Laureate Program.
Awards and honors
Roger Y. Tsien has received numerous honors and awards in his life, including:- National 1st Prize, Westinghouse Science Talent Search (1968)
- National Merit Scholarship, USA (1968)
- Detur Prize, Harvard College (1969)
- Marshall Scholarship, British government (1972)
- Comyns Berkeley Research Fellowship, Gonville and Caius College, CambridgeGonville and Caius College, CambridgeGonville and Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is often referred to simply as "Caius" , after its second founder, John Keys, who fashionably latinised the spelling of his name after studying in Italy.- Outline :Gonville and...
(1977) - Gedge Prize, University of Cambridge (1978)
- Searle Scholar, Searle Scholar program (1983)
- Lamport Prize, New York Academy of SciencesNew York Academy of SciencesThe New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
(1986) - Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and StrokeNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and StrokeThe National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health . It conducts and funds research on brain and nervous system disorders and has a budget of just over US$1.5 billion...
(1989) - Young Scientist Award, Passano Foundation (1991)
- W. Alden Spencer Award in Neurobiology, Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(1991) - Bowditch Lectureship, American Physiological SocietyAmerican Physiological SocietyThe American Physiological Society was founded in 1887 with 28 members. Of them, 21 were graduates of medical schools, but only 12 had studied in schools that had a professor of physiology. Today, the APS has 10,500 members, most of whom hold doctoral degrees in medicine, physiology or other...
(1992) - Hans L. Falk Memorial Lectureship, National Institute of Environmental Health SciencesNational Institute of Environmental Health SciencesThe National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is a part of the National Institutes of Health , which is in turn a part of the Department of Health and Human Services ....
(1993) - Quastel Lectureship, Hebrew University of JerusalemHebrew University of JerusalemThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
(1994) - President's Lectureship, American Thoracic SocietyAmerican Thoracic SocietyAmerican Thoracic Society , established in 1905, is an independently incorporated, international, educational and scientific society, serving its 18,000 members worldwide who are dedicated in respiratory and critical care medicine...
(1994) - Artois-Baillet-Latour Health Prize, Belgium (1995)
- Gairdner Foundation International AwardGairdner Foundation International AwardThe Gairdner Foundation International Award is given annually at a special dinner to three to six people for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a precursor to winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine; as of 2007, 69 Nobel...
, Canada (1995) - Basic Research Prize, American Heart AssociationAmerican Heart AssociationThe American Heart Association is a non-profit organization in the United States that fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and deaths caused by cardiovascular disease and stroke. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas...
(1995) - Elected to the United States Institute of MedicineInstitute of MedicineThe Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
(1995) - Doctorate honoris causa, Katholieke Universiteit LeuvenKatholieke Universiteit LeuvenThe Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a Dutch-speaking university in Flanders, Belgium.It is located at the centre of the historic town of Leuven, and is a prominent part of the city, home to the university since 1425...
, Belgium (1995) - Roger Eckert Memorial Lecture, Göttingen Neurobiology Conference of the German Neuroscience Society (1995)
- Faculty Research Lecturer, UC San Diego (1997)
- Elected to the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
(1998) - Elected to the United States National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
(1998) - Award for Innovation in High Throughput Screening, Society for Biomolecular Screening (1998)
- Melvin Calvin Lectureship, UC Berkeley (1999)
- Herbert Sober Lectureship, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyAmerican Society for Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyThe American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906 at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel...
(2000) - Pearse Prize, Royal Microscopical SocietyRoyal Microscopical SocietyThe Royal Microscopical Society is an international scientific society for the promotion of microscopy. RMS draws members from all over the world and is dedicated to advancing science, developing careers and supporting wider understanding of science and microscopy through its Science and Society...
(2000) - ACS Award for Creative Invention, American Chemical SocietyAmerican Chemical SocietyThe American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
(2002) - Christian B. Anfinsen Award, Protein Society (2002)
- Heineken PrizeDr A.H. Heineken PrizeThe Dr. A.H. Heineken and Dr. H.P. Heineken Prizes, named in honor of Alfred Heineken, former Chairman of Heineken Holdings, and Henry Pierre Heineken, son of founder Gerard Adriaan Heineken, are a series of awards bestowed by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences .-History:Alfred...
for Biochemistry and Biophysics, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesThe Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands...
(2002) - Max Delbrück Medal, Max Delbrück Centrum für Molekulare MedizinMax Delbrück Center for Molecular MedicineThe Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin-Buch is one of the sixteen research centers of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. The Max Delbrück Center was founded in January 1992 as successor of the Zentralinstitut für Molekularbiologie that depended of the German...
, Berlin (2002) - Keith Porter Lectureship, American Society for Cell Biology (2003)
- Konrad Bloch Lectureship, Harvard University (2003)
- Wolf Prize in MedicineWolf Prize in MedicineThe Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded once a year by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The Prize is probably the third most prestigious award...
, Israel (2004) - Keio Medical Science PrizeKeio Medical Science PrizeThe Keio Medical Science Prize , is a distinguished Japanese prize in medical sciences.-Introduction:The prize is awarded to scientists who made significant contributions to the field of medical sciences or life sciences...
, Japan (2004) - UCSD Chancellor's Associates Award for Excellence in Science & Engineering Research, UC San Diego (2004)
- Grass Foundation Lectureship, Society for Neuroscience (2004)
- Perl Prize in Neuroscience, University of North Carolina (2004)
- Associate Member, European Molecular Biology OrganizationEuropean Molecular Biology OrganizationEMBO stands for excellence in the life sciences. The EMBO mission is to enable the best science by supporting talented researchers, stimulating scientific exchange and advancing policies for a world-class European research environment....
(2005) - J.Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine, Robarts Research InstituteRobarts Research InstituteThe Robarts Research Institute is in London, Ontario, Canada with a staff of more than 600 people. Robarts scientists include physicians and physicists, biologists and biomedical engineers, and the range of diseases they study include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and many...
, Canada (2005) - ABRF Award, Association of Biomolecular Resource FacilitiesAssociation of Biomolecular Resource FacilitiesThe Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities is dedicated to advancing core and research biotechnology laboratories through research, communication, and education...
(2006) - Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in the Basic Medical SciencesRosenstiel AwardIn 1971, the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research was established as an expression of the conviction that educational institutions have an important role to play in the encouragement and development of basic science as it applies to medicine.Medals are...
, Brandeis UniversityBrandeis UniversityBrandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
(2006) - Foreign Fellow of the Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, UK (2006) - BioPharma Leadership Award, the 6th Annual San Diego BioPharma Conference, San Diego (2007)
- US Department of Defense (DoD) Breast Cancer Innovator Award
- Nobel Prize in ChemistryNobel Prize in ChemistryThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
, Sweden (2008) - E.B. Wilson Medal, American Society for Cell Biology (2008)
- Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of ChemistryRoyal Society of ChemistryThe Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences." It was formed in 1980 from the merger of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new...
(HonFRSC), UK (2008) - Honorary Academician, Academia SinicaAcademia SinicaThe Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
(2008) - February 18, 2009, Roger Tsien Day, in the City of San Diego, California, USA
- Distinguished Science and Technology Award, The 2009 Asian American Engineers of the Year (AAEoY) Award (April 2009)
- Lifetime Innovation Award, UC San Diego (May 20, 2009)
- AHA Distinguished Scientists, American Heart Association (2009)
- Molecular Imaging Achievement Award, Society of Molecular Imaging (2009)
- Doctor of Science honoris causa, The University of Hong Kong (2009)
- Doctor of Science honoris causa, Chinese University of Hong KongChinese University of Hong KongThe Chinese University of Hong Kong is a research-led university in Hong Kong.CUHK is the only tertiary education institution in Hong Kong with Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, including Chen Ning Yang, James Mirrlees, Robert Alexander Mundell and Charles K. Kao...
(2009) - The 1st Academia SinicaAcademia SinicaThe Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
Lecturer (the highest honor of the academy), Dec 2009 - General President Gold Medal, the 97th Indian Science Congress, India (January 3, 2010)
- Spiers Memorial Award, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK (2010)
- The 2010 National Lecturer of the Biophysical SocietyBiophysical SocietyThe Biophysical Society is an organization consisting of over 9,000 researchers in academia, government, and industry. Based in the USA, its international membership has grown to about 1/3 of the total. Founded in 1957 by Ernest C...
(the highest honor of the society) - The 2011 UCL Prize Lecture in Clinical Science (University College, London)
External links
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2008
- Tsien lab Website
- Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics 2002
- Tsien Nobel Prize lecture
- The Wolf Prize in Medicine in 2004 (detail)
- Research done by Roger Y. Tsien
- The Chemistry of Fluorescent Indicators: the Work of Roger Y. Tsien
- Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence – Popular science book describing history and discovery of GFP and includes a biography of Roger Tsien