Professor emeritus James Tsai-An Hsu of bioengineering and of chemical and biomolecular engineering, passed away on December 1, 2024. He was 77 years old.
Prof. Hsu was a distinguished chemical engineer and educator, renowned for his contributions to biopharmaceutical engineering. Born in Guangdong, China, he pursued his undergraduate studies at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He furthered his education in the United States, earning a Master of Science from the University of Rhode Island in 1972 and a PhD from Northwestern University in 1979.
Early in his career, Prof. Hsu served in research roles across a diverse set of firms including Monsanto Company, Allied-Signal Company, and Chevron Corporation. He also served the National Science Foundation as a program director from 1985 to 1986.
In 1986, Prof. Hsu joined Lehigh University as an associate professor of chemical engineering. He later became the director of the Biopharmaceutical Technology Institute, which contributed to the creation and dissemination of engineering and scientific knowledge required to develop, improve, and regulate biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry processes and products. Hsu remained active as a professor and mentor to Lehigh students and faculty until his retirement in 2024.
His research interests included bioseparation processes, aqueous two-phase polymer systems, chromatographic separations in industrial processing, and DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction engineering. Prof. Hsu was particularly focused on bioseparations using selective precipitation and affinity adsorption, exploring the use of antibody-antigen interactions for the recovery of specific proteins. He published over 40 articles in scientific journals, with his most cited article investigating how biomolecules partition between aqueous two phase systems.
For more about Professor Hsu, visit his obituary at legacy.com.
