AWARDEE OF LIFE  SCIENCES PRIZE

ZENG CHENGKUI

Abstract

Prof. Zeng Chengkui, a marine biologist known to the Academic Circle as C. K. Tseng, was born in Xiamen (Amoy), Fujian Province in June, 1909. He graduated from the Amoy University in 1931, receiving B.Sc. degree, the Lingnan University Graduate School in 1934, receiving M.Sc. degree, and the University of Michigan Graduate school in 1942, receiving D.Sc. degree. 1942-1943 he was a University of Michigan Rockham Postdoctoral Fellow and 1943-1946, a research associate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at Los Angeles. He was appointed professor and chairman of the Department of Botany and associate director of the University Institute of Oceanography by the Shandong University and returned to China in late 1946. In August 1950, Tseng was appointed research fellow (professor) and associate director of the Marine Biological Laboratory of the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The laboratory was promoted to the Institute of Marine Biology in August 1957 and the Institute of Oceanology, CAS in January 1959.
Tseing is now a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and New York Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences. He was awarded Honorable D.Sc. by the Ohio State University, U.S.A. in 1987 and is an awardee of the Shinkishi Hatai Medal of the Pacific Science Congress, 1995, Qiu Shi Prize of the Qiushi Science Foundation (Hong Kong) in 1996.
While in the U.S. Prof. Tseng dived and did experimental work on sea bottom 10 meter deep and started aquaculture experiment on land. Tsengs academic achievements in China include (1) solving three important problems in Chinas kelp cultivation industry, devising summer sporelings culture method, open sea fertilizing method and further southward  transplantation of the industry to the East China Sea; (2) solving the problem of the Porphyra life history, devising method of conchospore production and successfully cultivating Porphyra in the sea; (3) promotion of the Alginate industry in China after successful alginate extraction from brown seaweeds and application of the colloid in textile industry; (4) exploration of Chinas seaweeds and seaweed resources from Hainan Province and its three coral island groups in the south, northward to the other eight provinces in the north, publishing many scientific paper including one new family, two new genera and about one hundred new species; (5) comparative photosynthesis studies, proposing an evolutionary path of the photosynthetic organisms. His emphasis on the importanceof of oceanography in the fifties and of aquaculture in fisheries production in the sixties and se-venties has been well received and at present aquaculture production slightly exceeding fishery production by fish catching.