T.C. Hsu (; 17 April 1917 – 9 July 2003), was a
Chinese American cell biologist
Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...
. He was the 13th president of
American Society for Cell Biology
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.[Shaoxing
Shaoxing (; ) is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. It was formerly known as Kuaiji and Shanyin and abbreviated in Chinese as (''Yuè'') from the area's former inhabitant ...]
,
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...
,
China. 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 n ...
. 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, 11,07 ...
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 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
Joe Hin Tjio (2 November 1919 – 27 November 2001), was an Indonesian-born American cytogeneticist. He was renowned as the first person to recognize the normal number of human chromosomes on December 22, 1955 at the Institute of Genetics of the ...
and
Albert Levan[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