Robert Blankenship

Title:	Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences Professor of Chemistry Professor of Biology
Degree:	PHD, University of California - Berkeley BS, Nebraska Wesleyan University
Dept:	Biology
Office:	McDonnell Hall 232
Mailbox:	Campus Box 1229 One Brookings Drive St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Hide Full Mailing Address
Phone:	(314) 935-7971
E-mail:	blankenship@wustl.edu

Research Interests
Professor Blankenship's research program is primarily concerned with elucidating the mechanism of the energy-storing reactions in photosynthetic organisms, as well as understanding the origin and early evolution of photosynthesis. The chemical reactions leading to long-term energy storage in photosynthetic systems take place within the membrane-bound reaction center complex and an associated group of proteins that make up an electron transport chain. One of the central goals of our research is to identify the molecular parameters responsible for the fact that essentially every photon absorbed by the system leads to stable products. To this end, he does a variety of kinetic, thermodynamic and structural measurements on antenna complexes, reaction centers, electron transport proteins and isolated pigments, using a number of techniques, including ultrafast laser flash photolysis and UV-VIS, fluorescence and electron spin resonance spectroscopies, as well as biochemical and molecular biological analysis.

The appearance of photosynthesis and other metabolic processes such as nitrogen fixation had profound effects on the evolution of advanced life on Earth. Professor Blankenship's analysis of whole bacterial genomes has revealed that these metabolic processes have complex evolutionary histories, including substantial horizontal gene transfer. He has also used a combination of genomic, molecular evolution techniques and biochemical analysis to identify and characterize previously unknown enzyme complexes with novel activities.

A new research interest is in the area of chemical education, with interest in understanding the attitudes and preconceptions that non-science students have about science and how those ideas change upon exposure to a course in liberal arts chemistry, as well as the special challenges involved in biochemistry education.

Selected Publications:

• "Conservation of Distantly Related Membrane Proteins: Photosynthetic Reaction Centers Share a Common Structural Core " Sadekar S, Raymond J, Blankenship RE, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 23: 2001-2007 (2006)

• "Light-harvesting in photosystem I supercomplexes.," A.N. Melkozernov, J. Barber and R.E. Blankenship , Biochemistry 45 331-345 (2006)

• "A New Class of Bacterial Membrane Oxidoreductases," M.F. Yanyushin, M. del Rosario, D.C. Brune and R.E. Blankenship, Biochemistry 44 10037-10045 (2005)

• "An obligately photosynthetic bacterial anaerobe from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent," J.T. Beatty, J. Overmann, M.T. Lince, A.K. Manske, A.S. Lang, R.E. Blankenship, C.L. Van Dover, T.A. Martinson and F. Plumley, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102 9306-9310 (2005)

• "Two-dimensional spectroscopy of electronic couplings in photosynthesis," T. Brixner, J. Stenger, H.M. Vaswani, M. Cho, R.E. Blankenship and G.R. Fleming, Nature 434 625-629 (2005)