Home Faculty and Research Faculty by Name Alexander Glazer

Alexander Glazer

Professor of the Graduate School Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

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Research Interests

My longstanding interests have been in protein chemistry and structure-function relationships, enzymology, and biophysical chemistry. Past research encompassed studies of the assembly and structure-function relationships of macromolecular complexes, analysis of fundamental processes in light-harvesting in photosynthesis, development of fluorescent reagents for cell sorting and cell analyses, for detection of reactive oxygen species and physiologically important antioxidants, reagents and methods for high sensitivity DNA sequencing and detection.

Current Projects

Since January 1998, I have been the director of the University of California Natural Reserve System (NRS). The NRS manages 37 reserves that encompass about 135,000 acres across twelve ecological regions in California. The NRS supports research and teaching at all campuses of the University of California in a variety of disciplines that require fieldwork in natural areas  (see http://nrs.ucop.edu). As a result of this administrative responsibility, my interests have expanded to include a broad spectrum of environmental sciences. My current major (though not exclusive) focus is on the impact of anthropogenic fixed nitrogen on the Earth. Nitrogen fertilizer applications to the Earth’s land surface have approximately doubled the amount of available fixed nitrogen. Known outcomes of this huge increase in fixed nitrogen availability include eutrophication of freshwater lakes, hypoxic zones in the oceans, rising concentrations of nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas that also destroys ozone) in the atmosphere, and contamination of drinking water supplies with nitrate. Other observed impacts on the functioning of ecosystems remain to be clearly defined and quantified. Research publications on nitrogen currently number in the hundreds each year. I am performing analyses of this immense literature drawn from numerous disciplines in several specific sub-areas to synthesize findings of diverse studies to gain new insights into the impact this huge perturbation produces in natural nitrogen fluxes. Such insights may lead to predictions amenable to direct experimental testing.

In other collaborative studies, we utilize the very large public protein sequence databases to explore the patterns of conservation and change of structural features within protein families over their evolutionary history in an attempt to assign the factors driving the observed conservation and change.

Selected Publications

Conserved Amino Acid Sequence Features in the Subunits of MoFe, VFe, and FeFe Nitrogenases. [A.N. Glazer and K.J. Kechris  (2009) PLoS ONE 4(7): e6136.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006136]

Microbial Biotechnology.  Fundamentals of Applied Microbiology. [A.N. Glazer and H. Nikaido (2007) 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.]

Quantitative exploration of the occurrence of lateral gene transfer by using nitrogen fixation genes as a case study. [K. Kechris, J.C. Lin, P.J. Bickel, and A.N. Glazer (2006) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 9584-9589]

Cryptic species within the cosmopolitan dessication-tolerant moss Grimmia laevigata. [C.C. Fernandez, J.R. Shevock, A.N. Glazer, and J.N. Thompson (2006) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 637-642]

Energy Transfer Fluorescent Labels for DNA Sequencing and Analysis [J. Xie, S.-C. Hung, A. N., Glazer, and R. A. Mathies (2003) In Topics in Fluorescence Spectroscopy. DNA Technology, Vol. 7, pp. 105-127 ed. J. R. Lakowicz. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, NY]

Finding Important Sites in Protein Sequences. [P.J. Bickel, K.J. Kechris, P.C. Spector, G.J. Wedemayer, and A.N. Glazer (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 14764-114771]

Roger Yate Stanier, 1916-1982: a Transcendent Journey. [A.N. Glazer (2001) Int Microbiol. 4, 59-66]

Natural Reserves and Preserves. [A.N. Glazer (2001) In Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. ed. S. Lewin, Vol. 4, pp. 317-327, Academic Press, San Diego]

Recombinant Phycobiliproteins. Recombinant C-Phycocyanins Equipped with Affinity Tags, Oligomerization, and Biospecific Recognition Domains. [Y.A. Cai, J.T. Murphy, G.J. Wedemayer, and A.N. Glazer (2001) Anal. Biochem. 290, 186-204]

Last Updated 2009-07-27