Roger Yonchien Tsien died on August 24. His death was announced on August 31 by the University of California, San Diego, where he was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry. A first-born American, he was born in New York in 1952 to Hsue Chu Tsien, a mechanical engineer, and Yi Ying, who was trained as a nurse. Dr. Tsien grew up in Livingston and attended Livingston High School, where he won in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search competition in 1968. Dr. Tsien began sketching chemistry experiments at age eight and earned his first Boy Scout merit badge in chemistry. He entered Harvard University at 16 and was graduated with a degree in chemistry and physics in 1972. He earned a doctorate in physiology from the University of Cambridge in England in 1977. Dr. Tsien became a junior professor at UC Berkeley before moving to the University of California at San Diego in 1989. Dr. Tsien earned many professional honors, including being elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Tsien shared the Nobel Prize in 2008 with Osamu Shimomura and Martin Chalfi e, for converting green fluorescent protein from a jellyfish into a research tool that could illuminate everything from brain cells to bacteria. The discovery is said to have revolutionized scientists' ability to study disease and normal development in living organisms. "He was ahead of us all," Tsien's wife, Wendy, said in a university statement. "He was ever the adventurer, the pathfinder, the free and soaring spirit. Courage, determination, creativity, and resourcefulness were hallmarks of his character. He accomplished much. He will not be forgotten." In addition to his wife, Dr. Tsien is survived by two brothers, Richard and Louis; and a stepson, Max Rink.
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