But in 1989, while Chen was an associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica's Institute of Biomedical Sciences, it was noted in his annual assessment that he was "a long way from becoming a scholar of international standing."
一九八九年，擔任中研院生物醫學科學研究所合聘研究員的陳建仁，卻在生醫所年度評鑑中，被批評為「沒有辦法趕上國際潮流」，說他「要成為世界一流學者，還有很長一段路要走」。