Associate Professor of Chemistry Chong Fang is the 2016 recipient of the OSU Promising Scholar Award. The award honors achievement of a high level of accomplishment by a junior faculty in a relatively short period of time at OSU, and who is also expected to continue his/her extraordinary work. The honor is awarded by the faculty senate and consists of a $1,500 honorarium and a plaque presented at the University Day celebration in September.
Fang’s research focuses on the structure-function relationships of biomolecules and novel materials, ranging from fluorescent proteins which can light up subcellular entities for bioimaging, proteins and enzymes that are potential targets for biomedicine, to nanoclusters and metal-organic complexes in solution.
In 2014, Fang and his collaborators created a powerful imaging technology to observe molecular processes. The technology improves upon existing biosensors and can study everything from nerve impulses to cancer metastasis as it occurs.
His research, at the intersection of chemistry, physics and biology, has garnered significant recognition and awards. In addition to the prestigious NSF CAREER Award, Fang has received numerous high profile awards in 2015-2016 alone. They include the Oregon Medical Research Foundation (MRF) New Investigator Award, the Robin Hochstrasser Young Investigator Award by Elsevier and Chemical Physics, and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi Emerging Scholar Award.
Fang is an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher and mentor, who ensures students gain valuable research experience and acquire expertise in cutting-edge biomedicine and bioengineering techniques. The Fang lab comprises of a postdoctoral scholar and nine graduate and undergraduate students who are trained “to conduct independent research on structural dynamics characterization of functional biomolecules using state-of-the-art ultrafast spectroscopic tools and other bioanalytical techniques.”
Fang has been in the Department of Chemistry at OSU since 2010. He completed a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology, China. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
Read more: Chemists develop “molecular movie” using imaging technology
