Roger Y. Tsien 1952–2016

Abstract

On August 24, 2016, Roger Tsien unexpectedly died during one of his weekly bike expeditions in Eugene,O regon. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 (together with Osamu Shimo-mura and Martin Chalfie), Tsien is credited with developing the wide palette of colored fluorescent proteins that are now an essential tool of much biological and medical research. Roger Yonchien Tsien was born in New York in February 1, 1952, the youngest son in af amily of gifted and illustrious engineers.H es oon demon-strated ap recocious gift for chemistry (and explo-sions) in the family basement with reagents sup-plied by his father.A fter winning the first prize in the Westinghouse Science Competition at the age of 15, he attended Harvard University and obtained a " double-major " degree in chemistry and physics, but with minimal organic chemistry.Hethen made ab old and fateful decision (partially guided by his elder brother, Dick) to obtain his PhD in physiol-ogy at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1976. Given free rein to develop his own ideas by his supervisor,R ichard Adrian, an oted muscle phys-iologist, and with as pare bench in the chemistry teaching laboratory and interaction with physiolo-gists such as TimR ink, he set forth on the path he was to continue along for his entire career. Rogerst hesis entitled The Design and Use of Organic Chemical Tools in Cellular Physiology includes the synthesis of dyes for studying mem-brane potentials (" voltage " dyes) and determining Ca 2+ + concentrations;t hese dyes he honed inter-mittently and tirelessly through many iterations and forms (including versions with fluorescent proteins) until his death. During ap roductive postdoctoral period in the same department he made two seminal inventions,n amely the first fluorescent calcium sensor quin2, and the use of acetoxymethyl esters to load it into cells in a nondisruptive way.T his combination permitted measurement of this important and dynamic second messenger (Ca 2+ +