Sunday, January 23, 2011

 Nobel Laureate Professor John Fenn Has

 Passed Away (1917-2010)

Prof John Fenn: The person who opened the technique in Chemist's tool box for Biologists.....

Prof John Fenn was born in New York City

in 1917. He moved with his family to Berea, Ky., as a

teen. He attended Berea College, receiving his

bachelor's degree in1937. He earned his Ph.D. in

physical chemistry from Yale in1940.

After his graduation, he worked in industry, with stints

at Monsanto in Anniston, Ala.; Sharples Chemicals in

Wyandotte, Mich.; and Experiment Inc., a small

company in Richmond.

In 1952, he moved to Princeton University as the

director of the Navy-funded Project SQUID to

sponsor pure and applied research related to jet propulsion. On the other hand he served as a

 

professor of mechanical engineering from 1959 to 1963 and of aerospace sciences from 1963 to1966.

Fenn did the work for which he received the Nobel Prize while at Yale University, where he was a

professor of applied science and chemistry from 1967 to 1980.Fenn produced his breakthrough in

the late 1980s by transforming an analysis technique called mass spectrometry, which helps reveal the

mass and charge of particles.

 

The technique had long been part of the chemists’ toolbox, but was not

effective with large and complex molecules – such as proteins, peptides and DNA.

He was the professor of chemical engineering from 1981 until his retirement in 1987.Fenn published

his research in 1988, shortly after being forced to retire from Yale University because he had reached 70.

He had stayed on as a professor emeritus, but was not allowed to use graduate students to help with his

research, and was downsized to a smaller office. Subsequently he moved to Virginia Commonwealth

University in 1994 because the school furnished him with a laboratory.

In 1992, Fenn received the Award for Distinguished

Contribution in Mass Spectrometry from the

American Society for Mass Spectrometry. He was a

member of the American Chemical Society for 69

years. After Fenn left Yale, the university discovered

that he had filed a personal patent for the technique,

contrary to the university’s policy, and, in 1991, had

licensed the patent to a company he had co-founded

Saravanan Kumar,ICGEB

SK

 

with a graduate student. John Fenn’s wife, Margaret, died in 1992.

Prof Fenn shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work that aided the mass spectrometric

analysis of proteins and other large biological molecules. He shared the Nobel prize with Japanese

scientist Koichi Tanaka and Kurt Wuthrich of Switzerland.In 2005, Fenn lost a dispute with Yale over the

patent rights to electrospray MS, according to the New York Times.

In an interview published in the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry, Dr. Fenn expounded on his

views about chemistry education."Courses ought to be fun," he said. "I don't care whether we cover

everything in the periodic table or not. . . . There's no fun anymore!"I wish we could somehow get it

across that the purpose of education is to develop young peoples' minds, not fill them up with a lot

of facts," he said. "Teach them how to think." 

Prof John Fenn- Nobel soul passed away on Dec10 2010

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2002/fenn-lecture.html 

 Hats off Doc..... “My progress in profession is because of persons

like you”  

SARAVANAN KUMAR }}}}  

Research Associate, Senior R&D Executive, 

Proteomics Facility, PTG, Bruker Daltonics India pvt ltd, 

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology,

New Delhi, India 

http://sk-manandmachines.blogspot.com/  

Saravanan Kumar,ICGEB

SK