Re: Historical question - Jan Wichmann

[Jan Wichmann]

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Hello, my name is Jan Wichmann.  By chance and quite late I came accross
this discussion thread ("Historical question - Jan Wichmann") and would
like to give a short statement myself to clarify the role I played in the
early stages of STED microscopy:

During my time in Finland, mentioned in the previous posts, I worked out an
appropriate physical/mathematical modelling which showed that and how
Stefan Hell's idea of increasing the resolution by stimulated emission
depletion can be realized.

This resulted in the first STED-paper published by Stefan and me in
"Optical Letters" in early 1994 (Hell, Wichmann, 1994,
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-19-11-780).

At the same time we applied for the corresponding patent to the STED
microscopy concept.  This patent registered Hell and Wichmann as equally
entitled applicants and inventors.

To the further development of the STED microscopy I did not make any
contributions, as I unfortunately had to withdraw from the scientific scene
due to a chronical desease beginning in 1994 and still lasting until today.

In order to simplify licensing of the patent, in 2001 I agreed to transfer
my part of the property rights to Stefan.  Since then he has been the only
owner of the patent.  However, the licensing income is shared out until
today, regulated by a private contract between Stefan and me.

I am very pleased that the STED microscopy has been awarded the Nobel Prize
for Chemistry, and offer my congratulations to Stefan.


Jan


On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:22:27 +1100, Guy Cox <[hidden email]> wrote:

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>Let's be quite clear that there was never any implication in my original
>query that working on STED, or working with Stefan, had driven Wichmann
>out of science!  :)  
>
>                                  Guy
>
>Optical Imaging Techniques in Cell Biology
>by Guy Cox    CRC Press / Taylor & Francis
>     http://www.guycox.com/optical.htm
>______________________________________________
>Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
>Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis,
>Madsen Building F09, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
>
>Phone [phone]     Fax [phone]
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>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]]
>On Behalf Of Stefan W. Hell
>Sent: Monday, 14 November 2011 12:58 PM
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: Re: Historical question - Jan Wichmann
>
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>Sudipta,
>
>Jan Wichmann was a lab intern who spent about 2-3 weeks with me in
>Turku, Finland doing numerical evaluations of STED, after completing his
>
>Diploma (Master's equivalent) work and before starting his PhD work in
>Jurgen Wolfrum's lab in Heidelberg.  I met him in Heidelberg in early
>summer 1993, in fact on a birthday party of my then-girlfriend. He was
>the new boyfriend of a classmate of her at Heidelberg Medical School.
>Since my postdoctoral fellowship in Heidelberg had just expired, I was
>preparing my leaving to Turku, Finland for a new postdoctoral
>fellowship. He expressed interest in visiting me at this 'exotic Finnish
>
>place' as an intern, after having completed his Diploma work.
>So he came to Turku in early December 1993, I disclosed the idea of STED
>
>to him, which I had earlier, and asked him to perform numerical
>simulations, with particular attention on the duration of the pulses and
>
>that of the vibrational decay. The stay was too short for doing any
>experimental work.
>I also remember that I asked him whether he would be interested in
>continuing in Turku, but he opted for Prof. Wolfrum's lab. This was very
>
>understandable, since Prof. Wolfrum had offered a well-funded PhD
>position in his very successful lab in Heidelberg, where Jan had just
>begun a new relationship. I was a struggling postdoc, without own lab or
>
>funding, and far away.
>In any case, in the following year he was confronted with health issues,
>
>as far as I recall after a trip to Morocco, which made it difficult for
>him to get his experimental PhD work started in the Wolfrum laboratory,
>although he was a first-rate student. I also remember that later on
>Prof. Wolfrum allowed him to do some work at home, and that he
>generously continued to pay his salary for almost a year. The fact that
>Jan Wichmann did not complete his PhD has nothing to do with STED.
>Likewise, I can hardly imagine that he was unhappy with the Wolfrum
>laboratory.
>
>Stefan
>
>
>On 12-Nov-11 11:42, Sudipta Maiti wrote:
>> *****
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>>
>> According to Prof. Jurgen Wolfrum, Wichmann's Ph.D. advisor and
>currently a
>> visitor here, Wichmann left science without finishing his Ph.D. for
>personal
>> reasons. He had taken a leave for a few months during his Ph.D. period
>to
>> pursue the STED idea with Stefan Hell.
>> Sudipta
>>
>> On Mon, 7 Nov 2011 21:49:36 +1100, Guy Cox wrote
>>> *****
>>> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
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>>>
>>> I was doing a bit of historical research today and I looked up Jan
>>> Wichmann, of the historic first paper on STED (Hell&  Wichmann, 1994,
>>> Optics Letters 19: 780-782).  To my surprise the Scopus database
>showed
>>> just one paper for Wichmann - that one, with more than 500 citations.
>>> This must be a pretty rare situation.  Does anyone know who Wichmann
>>> (from Turku in Finland) was and what became of him?
>>>
>>> Guy
>>>
>>> Optical Imaging Techniques in Cell Biology
>>> by Guy Cox    CRC Press / Taylor&  Francis
>>>       http://www.guycox.com/optical.htm
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
>>> Australian Centre for Microscopy&  Microanalysis,
>>> Madsen Building F09, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
>>>
>>> Phone [phone]     Fax [phone]
>>>               Mobile [phone]
>>> ______________________________________________
>>>        http://www.guycox.net
>>
>> Dr. Sudipta Maiti
>> Dept. of Chemical Sciences
>> Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
>> Homi Bhabha Raod, Colaba, Mumbai 400005
>> Ph. 91-22-2278-2716 / 2539
>> Fax: [phone]
>> alternate e-mail: [hidden email]
>> url: biophotonics.weebly.com
>
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