VCU Celebrates Research Career of Nobel Laureate John Fenn

By Sathya Achia Abraham and Sara Hall

Virginia Commonwealth University will celebrate the 90^th birthday of John B. Fenn, Ph.D., 2002 Nobel Prize winner and VCU chemistry professor, with a symposium and banquet in his honor.

The event is scheduled for Friday, June 15, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the VCUStudentCommons, Commons Theater, 907 Floyd Ave.  

Guest speakers, including two 1986 Nobel Prize winners -- Yuan-Tseh Lee, Ph.D., president of Academia Sinica, who holds affiliations with Taiwan National University and the University of California, Berkeley, and Dudley R. Herschbach, Ph.D., the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University -- will address developments in chemistry and mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique used to identify, quantify and explain unknown compounds. Fenn was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in this area.

Invited speakers for the symposium include experts in chemistry from Cornell, Purdue, Princeton, Yale and Harvard universities, and from the University of Virginia and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, experts are invited from Taiwan National University, the American Chemical Society and the National Science Foundation.

Fenn was awarded the 2002 Noble Prize in chemistry from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his work on mass spectrometric analysis of biological macromolecules.  Fenn joined VCU in 1994 as professor of analytical chemistry in VCU's Department of Chemistry after more than 20 years at Yale University. 

The event is sponsored by the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences and the Department of Chemistry.

The symposium is free and open to the public. However, there is a fee of $100 to attend the reception and banquet beginning at 6:45 p.m.For pre-registration and fee requirements visit http://www.has.vcu.edu/che/fenn90/banquet.html or contact Dr. Samy El-Shall at (804) 828-3518 or mselshal@vcu.edu.

For more information on the event visit: http://www.has.vcu.edu/che/fenn90/index.html.