Quick Facts
Biography
Kuo-Chen Chou (周国城) is a Chinese-born American biophysical chemist. He was the Founder of Gordon Life Science Institute. Since 2014 he has been named every year by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics as the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds"for his publications being among the top 1% most cited in the fields of biology, biochemistry and computer science. As of August 2017, Dr. Chou’s H-index is 127.
Education and career
After earning a BS in Physics (1960) and MS in Theoretical Physics (1962) from Nanjing University, Chou joined Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry (now Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology), Chinese Academy of Sciences, as a junior scientist. Owing to his breakthrough works in Diffusion-controlled reaction of Enzyme, Low-frequency collective motion in proteins and DNA, and Graph theory in enzymatic kinetics, Chou was endowed with the "Ph.D." title and was exceptionally promoted by Chinese Academy of Sciences to directly become an Associate Professor right after the end of Cultural Revolution. In 1979-1980 he was invited by Professor Sture Forsén
and Professor Manfred Eigen, respectively, to work in Chemical Center of Lund University in Sweden and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry at Göttingen of Germany as a Visiting Professor. From 1981, he was invited by Professor Harold Scheraga to work in Baker Laboratory of Chemistry, Cornell University in USA as a visiting Professor. In 1986, he joined Upjohn then Pharmacia & Upjohn, and then Pfizer as a senior principal investigator. After retiring from Pfizer in 2003, he founded the Gordon Life Science Institute.
Publications
Chou has published over 560 papers in the fields of computational biology and biomedicine, protein structure prediction, low-frequency internal motion of protein/DNA molecules and its biological functions, diffusion-controlled reactions of enzymes, as well as graphic rules in enzyme kinetics and other biological systems. For more information about his publications, click his Google Scholar record [1] or ResearcherID [2].
Awards and honors
Chou’s awards and honors include “Medal of Science and Technology” (Shanghai Congress of Science & Technology, 1977); “National Science Medal” (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, 1978); Doctor of Science for the work on “Low-Frequency Motions of Protein Molecules” (Kyoto University, Japan, March 6, 1985); “The Scientist with the most hot papers (2007-2008) in the world"
Author of the 2009 hot paper in the field of Biology & Biochemistry
“The high impact distinguished professor” (King Abdulaziz University, 2013); "First-Class Science & Technology Award" (honored by Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, 2015); "Honorary Chair of the 7th International Conference on Bioinformatics (October 24–25, 2016 Rome, Italy)"
“2014 Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Biology & Biochemistry and Computer Science”(Thomson Reuters, June 18, 2014); “2015 Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Biology & Biochemistry” (Thomson Reuters, September 8, 2015)
“2016 Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Biology & Biochemistry and Computer Science” (Clarivate Analytics, December 31, 2016), being listed in the "world’s most influential scientific minds"