Roger Tsien, PhD

Roger Tsien grew up steeped in technology — his father was an engineer and two uncles were engineering professors at M.I.T. As a child, Roger turned his own early scientific curiosities into chemistry projects in the Tsien family’s basement. Roger’s early academic achievements earned him a National Merit Scholarship to pursue undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Physics at Harvard.

He built upon that foundation with a PhD in Physiology at Cambridge, England. Roger’s academic career later brought him to UC Berkeley, and ultimately to his current position at UC San Diego where he is a Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Roger’s lab has developed novel ways to image and possibly deliver specially targeted drugs to tumors. “My motivation to help develop new, more effective cancer treatments comes from my knowledge of the limitations of current therapies,” said Tsien, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008. “I’ve also always wanted to do something clinically relevant in my career, if possible, and cancer is the ultimate challenge." For Nobel laureate Roger Tsien, this drive to help find a cure for cancer stems from a deeply personal experience. His own father battled prostate cancer and ultimately lost his life to pancreatic cancer. During his father’s cancer battles, Roger observed up-close the need for more effective, targeted therapies — approaches that attack the cancer cells and tumors while avoiding the patient’s healthy tissues.

The results of Roger’s efforts may one day spare others his father’s painful experience as a cancer patient. This aloha spirit thrives in the Tsien lab at UC San Diego where the next generation of warriors in the battle against cancer, hone their scientific skills. Students gain scientific tools and inspiration in the Tsien lab that will build upon the considerable achievements of their mentor.

Roger passed away on August 24, 2016.