David Beratan

Last updated
David N. Beratan
Born1958
Evanston, Illinois
Alma mater Duke University (B.S.)
California Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Known for Biophysics
Electron tunnelling
Awards Irving Langmuir Award (2024)
Bourke Award (2019)
Murray Goodman Memorial Prize (2018)
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2013)
Guggenheim Fellow (1999)
Scientific career
Fields Chemistry
Institutions Duke University
University of Pittsburgh
Thesis The theory of long distance electron transfer reactions  (1985)
Doctoral advisor John Hopfield
Website chem.duke.edu/labs/beratan

David N. Beratan (born 1958) is an American chemist and physicist, the R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. [1] He has secondary appointments in the departments of Physics [2] and Biochemistry. [3] He is the director of the Center for Synthesizing Quantum Coherence, a NSF Phase I Center for Chemical Innovation. [4]

Contents

Career

Beratan received a Bachelor of Science with a major in chemistry from Duke University in North Carolina in 1980. He began his graduate studies in electron transfer theory at California Institute of Technology, where he received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1986, advised by John Hopfield. [5]

Upon completion of his doctorate, Beratan was a National Research Council Resident Research Associate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and later a Member of the Technical Staff, and held a concurrent visiting appointment at Caltech’s Beckman Institute. [6] At JPL, he developed the tunneling pathway model for biological electron transfer (with José Onuchic) [7] and general principles for optimizing the nonlinear response of organic structures (with Joseph W Perry and Seth Marder). [8]

In 1992, he was appointed Associate Professor of Chemistry at University of Pittsburgh, where he was promoted to full professor in 1997. [6] At Pittsburgh he pioneered studies of DNA electron transfer, [9] developed the foundations of inverse molecular design theory, [10] and developed strategies to assign the absolute stereochemistries of natural products using theoretical calculations (with Peter Wipf) of optical rotations. [11]

In 2001 he was appointed R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry at Duke University, and he served as chair of the chemistry department from 2004 - 2007. [6] At Duke, his studies have focused on novel electron transfer systems in biology, [12] signatures of quantum coherence in chemistry, [13] host-guest interactions, and inverse molecular design [14] and library design [15] (with Weitao Yang).

Current research

Ongoing studies in the Beratan lab target the design of molecular structures and assemblies to capture and convert solar energy, defining mechanisms of multi-electron redox catalysis, mapping charge transfer pathways and mechanisms in extremophiles, designing molecular structures that focus oscillator strength for light absorption, creating functional de novo proteins, enumerating diversity-oriented property-biased molecular libraries, exploring charge transfer over micrometer to centimeter distances in bacterial nanowires and bacterial cables, understanding how exciting molecular vibrations can change electron transport dynamics, and understanding the physical principles that underpin host-guest interactions. [16]

Major publications

(Publications listed below have been cited more than 200 times) [17]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "Duke Chemistry". Duke University Chemistry. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  2. ↑ "Duke Physics". Duke University Physics. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  3. ↑ "Duke Biochemistry". Duke University Biochemistry. Archived from the original on 10 July 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  4. ↑ "Award Abstract 1925690" . Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  5. ↑ "Academic Family Tree – John Hopfield". Neurotree - Hopfield. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Guggenheim Fellow Biosketch". Guggenheim Fellows. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  7. ↑ Beratan, Betts, Onuchic (1991). "Protein electron transfer rates set by the bridging secondary and teriary structure". Science. 252 (5010): 1285–1288. Bibcode:1991Sci...252.1285B. doi:10.1126/science.1656523. PMID   1656523.
  8. ↑ Marder, Beratan, Cheng (1991). "Approaches for Optimizing the First Electronic Hyperpolarizability of Conjugated Organic Molecules". Science. 252 (5002): 103–106. Bibcode:1991Sci...252..103M. doi:10.1126/science.252.5002.103. PMID   17739081. S2CID   39158497.
  9. ↑ Priyadarshy, Risser, Beratan (1996). "DNA is not a molecular wire: protein-like electron-transfer predicted in an extended pi-electron system". J. Phys. Chem. 100 (44): 17678–17682. doi:10.1021/jp961731h.
  10. ↑ Kuhn, Beratan (1996). "Inverse Strategies for Molecular Design". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 100 (25): 10595–10599. doi:10.1021/jp960518i.
  11. ↑ Kondru, Wipf, Beratan (1998). "Theory-Assisted Determination of Absolute Stereochemistry for Complex Natural Products via Computation of Molar Rotation Angles". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120 (9): 2204–2205. doi:10.1021/ja973690o.
  12. ↑ Zhang, Liu, Balaeff, Skourtis, Beratan (2014). "Biological charge transfer via flickering resonance". PNAS. 111 (28): 10049–10054. Bibcode:2014PNAS..11110049Z. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316519111 . PMC   4104919 . PMID   24965367.
  13. ↑ Skourtis, Waldeck, Beratan (2004). "Inelastic electron tunneling erases coupling-pathway interferences". J. Phys. Chem. B. 108 (40): 15511–15518. doi:10.1021/jp0485340.
  14. ↑ Wang, Hu, Beratan, Yang (2006). "Designing molecules by optimizing potentials". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 128 (10): 3228–3232. doi:10.1021/ja0572046. PMID   16522103.
  15. ↑ Virshup, Contreras-Garcia, Wipf, Yang, Beratan (2013). "Stochastic voyages into uncharted chemical space produce a representative library of all possible drug-like compounds". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135 (19): 7296–7203. doi:10.1021/ja401184g. PMC   3670418 . PMID   23548177.
  16. ↑ "Beratan Lab".
  17. ↑ "Google Scholar" . Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  18. ↑ "Bourke Award 2019" . Retrieved 10 July 2019.
  19. ↑ "Murray Goodman Memorial Prize 2018". 5 November 2018.
  20. ↑ "Florida Award 2017".
  21. ↑ "Herty Medal 2015". Archived from the original on 2019-07-10. Retrieved 2019-07-10.
  22. ↑ "Feynman Prize 2013". Archived from the original on 2019-07-10. Retrieved 2019-07-10.
  23. ↑ "Hirschmann Visiting Professorship".
  24. ↑ "NSF Young Investigator: Electron Transfer in Complex Systems".
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