VCU professor John B. Fenn receives 2002 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley

RICHMOND, Va. – John B. Fenn, a research professor in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University and an affiliate professor of chemical engineering, is one of three recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Fenn, Ph.D., 85, was honored for his invention of a pioneering technique that allows researchers to “weigh” large biological molecules, such as proteins, with unprecedented accuracy. The technique is used in chemistry laboratories around the world to rapidly and simply reveal what proteins a sample contains, contributing to the development of new pharmaceuticals, the awards committee said.

“John Fenn’s contributions to the science of analyzing proteins move us one step closer to discovery of important medicines that will help thousands of people one day,” said VCU President Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D.  “We’re proud to have a life scientist of his caliber on the research faculty at VCU.”

Dr. Fenn joined VCU in 1994 as professor of analytical chemistry in VCU’s Department of Chemistry after more than 20 years at Yale University.  He also is affiliate professor of chemical engineering in VCU’s School of Engineering.  

"There’s an awful lot of luck in this,” Fenn said at a news conference at VCU's Trani Center for Life Sciences. "In fact, there’s a lot of luck in science. To succeed as a theorist, you have to be good.  To succeed as an experimentalist, you only have to be lucky.  As an experimentalist, you can go through life kicking over a lot of stones, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll find something.”

Fenn won the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of mass spectrometry, specifically an analytical method that he published in 1988 called electrospray ionization (ESI) in which charged droplets of protein solution are produced.  Those droplets shrink as the water evaporates.  Eventually, freely hovering protein ions remain.  Researchers then can determine the masses of those protein ions by setting them in motion and measuring their time of flight over a known distance.

Previously, researchers using mass spectrometry were able to measure only small or medium-sized molecules.

Fenn’s current research at VCU, supported by National Science Foundation grants, is focused on measuring the affinity of molecules for water and on analyzing particulate matter that might hold answers one day to how atmospheric pollutants cause diseases.

Fenn received a B.A. in chemistry from Berea College in 1937 and a Ph.D. from Yale in 1940. He worked for about a dozen years in process development at Monsanto Co. and Sharples Chemical in Michigan and then spent seven years in Richmond at a small company that specialized in combustion engines. In 1959, he was named director of Project SQUID, a U.S. Navy program of basic and applied research in jet propulsion administered by Princeton University, where he became professor of aerospace and mechanical sciences.

Fenn joined the Yale faculty in 1967 as professor of applied science and chemistry, a post he held for 13 years. From 1980 until his retirement in 1987, he was professor of chemical engineering. He became a research scientist at Yale after being named emeritus in 1987 and held that post until moving his lab to VCU in 1994.

He has served as a visiting professor at Trento University in Italy, the University of Tokyo, the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore and the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing and as a distinguished lecturer at several other institutions. Author of one book and more than 100 papers, he is sole or co-inventor on 19 patents. 

The Nobel Prize for chemistry will be formally presented in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, who established the awards. The chemistry prize first was awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1901. It is given to those who “shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement.” 

The prize carries a cash award of about $1 million. Sharing this year’s award with Fenn are Koichi Tanaka, 43, of Shimadzu Corp. in Kyoto, Japan, (one quarter of the award) and Kurt Wuethrich, 64, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA (one half of the award).