Lap-Chee Tsui
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| Lap-Chee Tsui | |
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| Born | December 21, 1950 Shanghai, China |
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| Occupation | Vice-Chancellor, University of Hong Kong |
Lap-Chee Tsui, O.C., O.Ont. (Chinese: 徐立之; pinyin: Xú Lìzhī; born December 21, 1950) is a Hong Kong geneticist and is currently the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
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[edit] Personal life
Tsui was born in Shanghai. He grew up in Dai Goon Yu, a little village on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong near Kai Tak Airport, where he would hang out with other kids and go exploring in ponds, catching tadpoles and fish to do simple experiments. Here he acquired Cantonese. As a boy he dreamed of being an architect. He received his secondary education at Homantin Government Secondary School, Kowloon, Hong Kong. He did not take up genetics until after his PhD.
He studied biology in New Asia College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was awarded a BSc (with only 3rd class honours) and a MPhil from the university in 1972 and 1974, respectively. He would eventually prove himself to be an accomplished scientist despite his not very promising performance in college. Upon the recommendation of his mentor at the Chinese University, he continued his graduate education in the United States and received his PhD degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. He then became the Postdoctoral Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellow in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and Department of Genetics of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto in 1979 and 1981 respectively.
[edit] Career
From 1981 to 2002, Tsui continued his research and teaching in the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto alternatively. Prior to his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor, he was Geneticist-in-Chief and Head of the Genetics and Genomic Biology Program of the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children. He was also the holder of the H.E. Sellers Chair in Cystic Fibrosis and University Professor at the University of Toronto. He was the President of Human Genome Organisation (HUGO), the international organization of scientists involved in the Human Genome Project, from 2000 to 2002.
He has also served on the editorial boards for 20 international peer-reviewed scientific journals, numerous scientific review panels, and many national and international advisory committees, including the Medical Research Council of Canada, Canadian Genome Research Task Force Committee (Chair), Scientific Steering Committee of the National Institute of Biological Science, Scientific Advisory Committee of the China National Center for Biotechnology Development and Human Genome Organization. He is currently member of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, Council for Sustainable Development and Executive Committee, and Executive Committee of the Commission on Strategic Development of the Hong Kong SAR Government.
He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong in May 2002 and assumed office as the fourteenth Vice-Chancellor of the university with effect from September 1, 2002.
[edit] Academic contributions
Tsui became internationally acclaimed in 1989 when he and his team identified the defective gene, namely Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Regulator (CFTR), that causes cystic fibrosis, which is a major breakthrough in human genetics. He has also made significant contributions to the study of the human genome, especially the characterization of chromosome 7, and, identification of additional disease genes.
This paragragh is edited on to give readers a critique based on information revealed by Tsui himself which is available on the internet www.science.ca. The following information is copied and pasted from the mentioned web site.
"Richard Rozmahel passes time by reading the bulletin board hanging above the wheezing printer attached to the DNA sequencer. There’s an advertisement from a company selling genetic research chemicals. They’re offering a free T-shirt sporting the words: Ultra Pure Human Being. At the bottom of the ad he reads, “Send six peel-off seals from any GIBCO BRL Enzymes and receive an I Make My Living Manipulating DNA briefcase free.”
Ain’t it the truth, thinks Rozmahel to himself as he pulls yet another variation of the same tedious experiment from the printer. He looks at the printout absently as he makes his way back to his desk in the corner of the crowded genetics lab. People and equipment take up every possible space. Shelves groan with bottles, dishes and jars. He passes a friend staring into a microscope. A big humming refrigerator juts out into the passageway. Another student wears gloves while she puts hundreds of precisely measured portions of various liquids into tiny test tubes.
Rozmahel stops suddenly, just before he gets to his desk. Something is unusual about this printout. There it is: a three-base-pair deletion — a type of genetic mutation in a sequence of DNA. DNA molecules are long chains of instructions for making proteins, which themselves are long chains of connected molecules called amino acids. Each DNA instruction comes in a three-piece unit called a three-base pair, and each one stands for a particular amino acid needed in the construction of a protein. To Rozmahel, this three-base-pair deletion is as if one bead had vanished from a precious necklace. A mutation such as this might cause something as simple as a change in eye colour or as complex as a deadly disease.
Instead of sitting down at his desk, Rozmahel rushes to show his supervisor, Dr. Tsui (pronounced “Choy”). It’s almost six o’clock and most people have left for the night, but Lap-Chee Tsui is still working.
Tsui’s office is small. When Rozmahel arrives, Tsui is hunched over the desk, poring over some other experimental results. The shelves are loaded with books. Piles of paper cover every horizontal surface. Rozmahel looks at the shabby green rug while he waits.
“What is it, Richard?” asks Tsui, with a smile.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve found a three-base-pair deletion. Look here.” He indicates the two DNA sequences, one from a healthy person’s genes and one from a person with cystic fibrosis (CF) — a fatal disease that kills about one out of every 2,000 Canadians, mostly children. Cystic fibrosis is the most common genetic disease among Caucasians. Kids who have cystic fibrosis are born with it. Half of them will die before they are 25 and few will make it past 30. It affects all the parts of the body that secrete mucus; places like the lungs, the stomach, the nose and mouth. The mucus of kids with cystic fibrosis is so thick that sometimes they cannot breathe.
Tsui looks at the printout and says, “This is very good, Richard. Now show me that it’s real.” Tsui doesn’t seem excited at all, but he knows this is a solid clue, a major hint that they have found what they are looking for: the gene for cystic fibrosis, the cause of that terrible disease. But he has had false hopes before, so he is not going to celebrate until they check this out carefully. Maybe the difference between the two gene sequences is just a normal variation between individuals. If you take any two healthy people and compare 1,000 DNA bases, you have a good chance of finding the same thing Rozmahel had just found. There are plenty of little variations between individuals.
But Tsui remembers that day — May 9, 1989 — as the day they discovered the gene for cystic fibrosis.
He and his team spent the next five months making sure that their discovery was real, doing tests over and over to see whether the results would be the same. They identified a “signature” pattern of DNA on either side of the base-pair deletion, and using that as a marker they compared 100 healthy people’s genes with the identical DNA sequence from 100 cystic fibrosis patients. By September 1989 they were sure they had the cystic fibrosis gene."
It is suprising to learn that Tsui is generally credited for the discovery but he didn't seem to believe it. Tsui should be generally credited for his own Ph.D. thesis.
[edit] Honours and awards
Tsui has received numerous awards and honours for his outstanding work over the years. His honours include the titles of Distinguished Scientist of the Medical Research Council of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of Academia Sinica, Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Physicians (UK) and Honorary Fellow of World Innovation Foundation.
In addition to many national and international prizes, including the Killam Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts, Gairdner International Award, Cresson Medal of Franklin Institute, and Mead Johnson Award, he was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by the University of King's College, University of New Brunswick, Chinese University of Hong Kong, St. Francis Xavier University, York University and Tel Aviv University.
In 1991, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in October 2007, he was decorated as Knight of the Légion d'Honneur of France.[1] He also received the Order of Ontario and the title of Justice of the Peace (HKSAR) from the Hong Kong SAR Government.
In 2006, the fifth floor of the University of Toronto's Donnelly CCBR building was named after Lap-Chee Tsui to honour his research work. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ "Visit of the Grand Chancellor of the Légion d’honneur", Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, 2007, webpage: FHK17: (states "Lap Chee Tsui and Pr Malik Peiris, scientific director of HKU-Pasteur Research Centre received the award of Knight").
- ^ Landmark sculpture a tribute to U of T's giants of biomedical science. University of Toronto. Retrieved on 2008-01-17.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Ian Rees Davies |
Vice-Chancellor of The University of Hong Kong 2002- |
Succeeded by: Incumbent |
