On December 18th issue of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced the 531 members elected this year by the peer member, Dr. Chung-Hsuan Chen has been honored for his outstanding contributions under the Chemistry category.
Aside from the heavy administrative burden as being the director of Genomics Research Center, Dr. Chen, often called by colleagues as “Winston”, is really a curious scientist at heart.
According to his lab crews, he’d wonder around the lab at odd hours and pop up questions from no where to challenge their minds. Chen is currently leading the “Physical and Computational Genomics” Research Group.
As a matter of fact, if you look at his achievements, you would realize his enthusiasm in finding solutions for the society is the ultimate force that drives him forward.
To date, with his background in Chemistry and Physics, he has led teams that invented methods to detect what others can not. Simply put, he’s developed technologies from a broad spectrum of atomic, molecular and solid state physics as well as related applications in ultra-sensitive detection. You wonder what’s in a thing that causes the damage. He wants to find a way to open the black box!
Mass spectrometer is one of the most important analytical tools in modern technology. It is widely used in research as well as manufacturing processes to identify major chemical components of most materials. It has become one of the most critical tools for biomedical research, disease diagnosis, ecology research, environmental protection, geological survey and oil exploration.
Chen’s first work on developing new types of mass spectrometry was “Resonance Ionization Mass Spectrometer” back in 1976 with his colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in USA. It has a way to do single atom detection. The technology is still being used in some commercial Secondary Ionization Mass Spectrometer (SIMS) today.
His interest in pursuing the fact by distinguishing the weights of substances in particles invisible to conventional eyes has been non-stop since then.
In 1984, he delivered “Isotope Selective Atom Counter”, which is used to count isotope-selected atom one by one.
Observing the air pollution crisis, he came up with “Vacuum Ultraviolet Photoionization Mass Spectrometer” in 1990 for air pollutant detection
In 1997, by incorporating Laser technology, his invented “Laser-induced acoustic desorption mass spectrometer”, the technology is a major leap in detecting biomolecules, and the team has successfully pinpointed cancer cells by this method.
Later when he joined Genomics Research Center in Academia Sinca, he delivered the “Charge-Monitoring Mass Spectrometer” with peers in Genomics Research Center and Institute of Aomic and Molecular Sciences in 2007, the technology can measure both charge & mass-to-charge ratio at the same time. In return, cells and micro particles can be quickly measured, which made the commercialization of the technique much more feasible.
Lately, his invention is ”Ultrasound Ionization Mass Spectrometer”. According to Chen, this is a “very simple method for biomolecule detection”. Patent application is in process.
The basis of this development is from Chen’s innovative LIAD-MS (Laser Induced Acoustic Desorption Mass Spectrometry) method developed back in 1997. According to Chen, the idea of this design came from the observation of “ultrasonic washing machines”.
Of all these works, his dream is “to finalize the one-for-all mass spectrometry technology, so that it is possible to achieve qualitative and quantitative determination of all critical components in a single cell in the matter of hours, and in low cost”. Claimed Chen.
Bravo! Winston!