2016 MCASTA Outstanding Scholar

As the son of a Chinese diplomat, I was born in Indonesia and received my pre-college education in Japan, Taiwan, Bolivia, Barbados, and USA.  I speak English, Spanish and Chinese, and have a unique background of having experienced a variety of Western and Eastern cultures.  I came to the USA in 1968 to complete my education.  After working my way through college, graduate school and a post-doctoral fellowship, I joined Monsanto Co in 1981 and was promoted to Senior Science Fellow in 2006.  My research goal is to develop efficacious and economical systems to control weeds to maximize farming efficiency in crops like corn, soybean, and cotton.  My research areas include weed control, weed resistance and development of herbicide tolerant crops.

Monsanto Career Highlights

I have spent all of my 35 years at Monsanto in R&D working on numerous discovery and development projects.  I have published 59 manuscripts and have 26 issued patents, but the most impactful works were leading the discovery projects that resulted in 3 commercial products listed below.  Two of the products were commercialized in 2015 and 2016 with the third one to receive final regulatory approvals at the end of this year.  These products will enhance farmers’ ability to control weeds to maximize yield and improve efficiency in our manufacturing facilities for hybrid seed corn. 

• • • Project Lead for development of Bollgard II XtendFlex® cotton.  Commercialized in USA in 2015 on 750,000 acres which quadrupled to 3 million acres in 2016.

  • • Project Lead for development of Roundup Ready 2 Xtend® soybeans.  Commercialized in USA in 2016 on ~2 million acres and is projected to increase to 15 million acres in 2017.

  • • Project Lead for development of Roundup Hybridization Systems in corn.  Expected launch in USA in 2017. 

Dr. Fong-Fu Hsu started his career as a mass spectroscopist nearly 40 years ago at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research of Taiwan, right after he received his MS degree in Chemistry from the National Tsing-Hua University. There, he was responsible for the operation of one of the very few GC/MS instruments in the nation. After four years at the institute, he came to the US to continue his study in mass spectrometry and completed his PhD in 1986 at the University of Utah. After graduation, Dr. Hsu moved to St. Louis, where he continued his journey in mass spectrometry research at Washington University School of Medicine. In 1990, he was appointed as assistant professor, and was promoted to professor in 1997. His research is best known in the structural study on lipids by tandem mass spectrometry and has earned him a spot on the list as one of the most influential contributors to the Journal of American Society for Mass Spectrometry (JASMS) in 20 years (from 1990 to 2009). He has been invited to give many lectures, published 185 peer-reviewed papers and five book chapters, and is a frequent reviewer for over 20 journals, including JASMS, JACS, Analytical Chemistry, Nature Communication, and Journal of Lipid Res. Currently, he is responsible for the mass spectrometric lipid research program at Washington University Medical School.