T.C. Hsu (; 17 April 1917 – 9 July 2003), was a
Chinese American
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
cell biologist. He was the 13th president of
American Society for Cell Biology, and known as the ''Father of Mammalian Cytogenetics''.
Life
Hsu was born Hsu Tao-Chiuh in
Shaoxing,
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. He did his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the College of Agricultural Sciences,
Zhejiang University
Zhejiang University, abbreviated as ZJU or Zheda and formerly romanized as Chekiang University, is a national public research university based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a member of the prestigious C9 League and is selected into the na ...
. 1948, he went to USA, and obtained PhD from the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in 1951. Hsu worked in the laboratory of Charles Pomerat at the University of Texas Medical Branch during the early 1950s.
Since the turn of the twentieth century, chromosomes prepared on microscope slides formed clumps that made it extremely difficult to distinguish them. Although the preparations made the identification of individual chromosomes difficult, by the 1920s, cytologists consistently reported a
diploid
Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...
number of 48 human chromosomes. In April 1952, Hsu discovered a technique—the hypotonic solution—that separated the clumped chromosomes, thereby allowing him to observe each one individually Even though he now could distinguish human chromosomes to a much greater degree than his predecessors, Hsu still reported a diploid number of 48 human chromosomes (see Figure 14 in his 1952 paper). The correct diploid chromosome number of 46 human chromosomes was first reported three years later by
Joe Hin Tjio and
Albert Levan
Albert Levan (8 March 1905 – 28 March 1998) was a Swedish botanist and geneticist.
Albert Levan is best known today for co-authoring the report in 1956 that humans had forty-six chromosomes (instead of forty-eight, as previously believed). Thi ...
[Tjio J. H., & Levan A. (1956). �]
The chromosome number of man
” “Hereditas”, ’”42”’. 1–6.
Bryan Sykes describes Hsu and the diploid chromosome number in his book, ADAM'S CURSE .
Hsu was president of the
American Society for Cell Biology and served on the faculty at M.D. Anderson for more than 30 years. He was a UTMB GSBS Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient in 1996. He is also a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
His autobiography was published in the ''American Journal of Medical Genetics'' 59:304-325 (1995).
He died in
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, USA.
See also
*
Cytogenetics
*
Karyotype
A karyotype is the general appearance of the complete set of metaphase chromosomes in the cells of a species or in an individual organism, mainly including their sizes, numbers, and shapes. Karyotyping is the process by which a karyotype is disce ...
References
External links
Announcement of deathObituaryby S. Pathak for journal ''
Cytogenetics and Genome Research
''Cytogenetic and Genome Research'' is the name of a peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1962. It was published previously under the names ''Cytogenetics'' (1962–1972) and ''Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics'' (1973–2001).
...
''
Obituaryby Bill R. Brinkley for the
American Society for Cell Biology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hsu, T. C.
1917 births
2003 deaths
Chinese geneticists
Chinese emigrants to the United States
Zhejiang University alumni
Educators from Shaoxing
University of Texas faculty
Scientists from Shaoxing
Biologists from Zhejiang
People of the Republic of China