A dinner with a Nobel laureate, Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲教授) in 2004

Professor Yuan Tseh Lee

On October 26, 2004, members of the Taiwanese American Association (TAA), Pittsburgh Chapter, had a very pleasant and congenial dinner with a Nobel laureate, Professor Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲教授). After being informed by Professor Fu Tyan Lin (林富田教授) that Dr. Lee was coming to University of Pittsburgh, and with the help of Mrs. J.Y. Tzeng (鄭如玉, a family friend of Dr. Lee), Katy (then TAA, Pittsburgh Chapter president) organized the dinner at LeMonte Restaurant, Pittsburgh.

Inspired by Madame Curie, Dr. Lee wanted to be a scientist at a young age. His excellent academic foundation was built at the National Taiwan University and the National Tsinghua University. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, Dr. Lee joined Professor Dudley Herschbach (at Harvard—Janice’s freshman chemistry professor) for post-doc research in 1967. They shared the 1986 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry with Professor Polanyi for ‘reaction dynamics’—a new field they helped to create in 1960s and 1970s.

To create a new field in science per se is an extraordinary accomplishment. It is next to impossible to describe in this writing what Professor Lee did to be worthy for a Nobel Prize. But, I’ll give it a try.

I like to say that in the end all chemical reactions are physical. “A chemical reaction is fundamentally a mechanical event, involving the rearrangement of atoms and molecules during a collision.” (from Dr. Lee’s Nobel Lecture) Professor Herschbach pioneered the crossed molecular beam to study what happens to the two atoms the ‘moment’ (a time span of the order of a millionth of a millionth of a second) when they collide. With this technique they were able to ‘visualize’ the detail traveling paths of the colliding atoms during a chemical reaction.

You just have to trust them how they can ‘see’ it, using the quantum mechanical calculation of the angular and velocity distribution. i.e. measuring the direction, velocity, and potential energy, etc. one can locate the new position of the product. (Skip this paragraph if you must)

Katy and Professor Yuan Tseh Lee

Dr. Lee carried this technique to a higher level so that chemical reaction dynamics of a large, complex molecule can be studied. Being a physical chemist, he worked at two departments while at Harvard. After spending $80,000 (in 1967 dollars) in 10 months, using the money Dr. Herschbach borrowed from the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Lee built a ‘supermachine’ incorporating mass spectroscopy to the crossed molecular beam machine, thus taking Herschbach’s research of the chemical reaction dynamics to ‘beyond the alkali age.’

Despite much confidence in Lee during the course of machine construction, much concern and worry was expressed about this unprecedented endeavor of building the supermachine. At one point Herschbach said, “Yuan, if this machine doesn’t work, you have to shovel the snow in Harvard Yard for five years to pay back the money I borrowed.” Dr. Lee said of Herschbach in his Nobel Lecture,

“In February of 1967, I joined Dudley Herschbach’s group at Harvard as a post-doctoral fellow. There, I was exposed to the excitement of the crossed molecular beams research and participated in the construction of an universal crossed molecular beams apparatus. Dudley’s contagious enthusiasm and spectacular insight motivated not only me, but a whole generation of chemical dynamicists.”

Jer-Yuan Tsai, Professor Yuan-Tseh Lee and Katy Tsai

Lee’s late father was a fine artist. Katy asked him about the famous Niagara Fall painting. Dr. Lee said when he was at Harvard, his parents came to the States for a visit, and he took them to Niagara Falls. His father took lots of pictures and did that painting when he returned to Taiwan.

Lee also reminisced his childhood days when he wanted to learn painting from his father, who discouraged him or any of his seven siblings to take up painting, as his father said, “A poor artist can’t even make a living.” Thanks to his father insight, we have a super scientist furthers our basic science research to a higher level. His mother was a kindergarten teacher and Dr. Lee said he had the best teacher from the very beginning.

Among his numerous prestigious awards are National Medal of Science, Peter Debye Award and Nobel Prize, all in 1986. When Lee received the Nobel Prize, Dudley R. Herschbach described him as "The Mozart of physical chemistry...not only because Dr. Lee was a prodigy but also because in the laboratory he has 'a precise touch.'" (by James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius—Richard Feynman’s biography).

In my baseball posts I have mentioned how Herschbach and Lee boasted and claimed the credits of the championships of their baseball teams. When he came to Pittsburgh for two lectures in October 2004, the Red Sox - Cardinals World Series was going on, and I have no doubt about it that the Red Sox finally broke the Curse only because Dr. Lee returned to the States then. During his lectures at Pittsburgh Dr. Lee claimed the credits that Red Sox went to the World Series in 1967 when he went to Harvard and Oakland Athletics won the World Series champion in 1974 when he returned to Berkeley.

Dr. Lee has been the President of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan since 1994. There is a 22-minute interview of Dr. Lee that took place during the 55th Nobel laureates meeting in June 2005. Listening to the interview, one may gain further insight about this extraordinary Taiwanese Nobel laureate.

Prof Lee, Katy and Jer-Yuan

Immodest Francis Crick--Theoretic Biologist

(While writing my version of Crick’s obituary, I received an e-mail from Janice informing me that Francis Crick succumbed to colon cancer--the was originally written in 2004)

“I have never seen Francis Crick (see photo) in a modest mood.” So James Watson began his story of Double Helix.  And Crick had every reason not to be in that mood.  Janice, I bet it was quite a surprise when his grand-daughter told you that “He is my grand-father!” at Harvard computer room some years ago.)  Reading about him for so many years, I feel like I knew him by heart.

“It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”--Letter to the Nature (April 25, 1953). Almost every molecular biology professor put this passage in the lecture notes.  This was a compromised statement between Watson and Crick who was 12 years senior to Watson.  The aggressive, quick-witted Crick wanted to elaborate the detailed copying mechanism on the original article of April 25, 1953 (Molecular structure of nucleic acids), the younger, but more cautious Watson was afraid if their hypothesis of copying mechanism were not quite true, it might ruin the whole thing.  They quickly wrote the follow up article (Genetic implications of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid) that showed up on May 30, 1953 issue of Nature.  It has turned out Crick was correct in the first place.

Sydney Brenner once said Crick was the only one he knew that can make a living by being a theoretic biologist (Crick was working on the PhD in physics when WWII broke out, he then worked on the magnetic and acoustic mine in the British Admiralty.)  After moving to Salk Institute, Crick devoted his life in ‘the scientific search for the soul’ (this is the subtitle of his book Astonishing Hypothesis)—hypothetic neuroscience.

When Watson and Crick constructed that famous DNA model in April 1953, Sidney Brenner (originally from South Africa, born of Jewish parents) was in Oxford University and went to Cambridge to see it.  Brenner and Crick were also together in the Woods Hole Lab and Cold Spring Harbor Lab (in Long Island) in 1954.  Brenner joined Crick at Cavendish Lab in 1956 and “spent 20 years sharing an office with Francis Crick.”  Crick moved to Salk Institute at La Jolla, in 1976 and Brenner rejoined him there again in 2001. Brenner began to work on the ‘elegant’ C. elegans in late 1950s and for which he just received the Nobel Prize (programmed cell death or apoptosis) in Medicine in 2002—exactly 40 years after Watson and Crick did.  Brenner’s Nobel Lecture, Nature’s Gift to Science, talking about the importance of choosing the model organism for the intended research.

It is now almost a ‘common knowledge’ that how DNA uses its four bases to pass along the ‘secrets of life’ to the making of proteins.  It was Crick that first proposed his ‘adaptor’ tRNA (transfer RNA) hypothesis.  It was actually never published; it was just a letter to the then so-called RNA Tie Club. He also worked with Vernon Ingram (who discovered the replacement of Glu by Val at 6^th position of β-globin chain in sickle cell HbS, as predicted by Linus Pauline) and Sydney Brenner in this field.  Brenner was twice a visiting professor at Harvard, as was Crick.

“Crick is very different: brighter than Watson, but he talks a lot, and so he talks a lot of nonsense.” This was from Erwin Chargaff whose discovery of ‘A = T’ and ‘C = G’, along with Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkin’s X-ray crystography of DNA (see photo) were the most important hints to Watson & Crick, in my view.  I have read many reports that Chargaff had a lot of resentments (hence sour grape) that he was ‘so close’ and yet he let the ‘glory’ slip away. He was one of the 20 members of RNA Tie Club.  By the way, Chargaff was another Jew who fled Hitler’s Nazi. (my favorite topic that I mentioned in summer reading.2_2004)

It took many years before the DNA structure hypothesis was firmly accepted.  Matthew Meselson’s semiconservative replication provided the first confirmation.  Meselson took his Ph.D. from Linus Pauling at Cal Tech and who got an honorary degree at Joy’s graduation at Northwestern in 2003.

A few years ago, Time published 100 most influential people of the last century; both Watson and Crick are on the list.  Watson gave an introductory talk on the 2001 Nobel Symposia (Beyond genes) in Sweden, and Crick was no where in sight.  Throughout 2003 there were numerous activities celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the discovery of DNA structure.  Watson savored the glories on many functions, and Crick none.  He was not in his best health then, but that was not the main reason.  He preferred to read and think and hypothesize his science.