October 12, 2009

Nobel Laureates - "Double Happiness Coming at Our Door"

Many of you have heard the great news that Thomas A. Steitz, Sterling professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, is one of three winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  What you may not be aware of is that Charles Kao (高锟), one of the three winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, has deep connections to Yale, and to Hong Kong.

Thomas A. Steitz

Steitz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, shares the $1.4 million award with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom and Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. All three used a technology called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome. While the work began as a quest to answer basic questions about the makeup of ribosomes, knowledge of its structure has created targets for a new generation of antibiotics.

"Tom Steitz's relentless pursuit to solve a puzzle at the very foundation of biology inspires us, not only by its intellectual rigor, but also by its potential for the treatment of infectious diseases," said Yale President Richard C. Levin.  "His work is a compelling example of how a quest to answer fundamental questions about life processes can lead to dramatic benefits for mankind."

Charles K. Kao

In 1966, Charles K. Kao made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fiber optics. He carefully calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibers. With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers, compared to only 20 meters for the fibers available in the 1960s. Kao's enthusiasm inspired other researchers to share his vision of the future potential of fiber optics. The first ultrapure fiber was successfully fabricated just four years later, in 1970.

Mr Kao was born 1933 in Shanghai, China.   His family moved to Hong Kong in 1948. He completed his secondary education at St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong. He was admitted to the University of Hong Kong but because the university did not offer any electrical engineering program, he continued his undergraduate studies at Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of London. He then pursued his research at Imperial College and received his PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of London in 1965.

While studying for his PhD degree, Kao worked as an engineer for Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) at their Standard Telecommunications Laboratories (STL) research centre in Harlow, England (now Nortel Networks).  Kao did his groundbreaking work at STL where he was a young engineer and researcher.

He joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 1970 to found the electrical engineering department. During his office, the School of Education, and other new research institutes at CUHK were also established under his leadership.  He then went back to ITT Corporation, of which STC was a subsidiary in 1974.  In 1982, he became the first ITT executive scientist and was  stationed mainly at Advanced Technology Center in Connecticut. During this time, he was appointed as an adjunct professor and a fellow of Trumbull College at Yale University.  He served as the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Vice-Chancellor from 1987 to 1996.  In 1996, he became the first Chinese native to receive the Japan Prize, that country's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. 

Mr Kao retired in 1996 and currently resides in the United States with his wife.

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