An Investiture ceremony on April 21, 2011, officially recognize the two named chairs in plant sciences and biochemistry: David Kramer, the Hannah Professor of Photosynthesis and Bioenergetics, and Robert Last, the Barnett Rosenberg Chair of Biochemistry. Photo by Michael Steger.
David M. Kramer, Hannah Professor of Photosynthesis and Bioenergetics, studies how plants convert light energy into substances usable by life through photosynthesis. He works with both plants and algae to understand how improving the efficiency of photosynthesis could be applied to bioenergy, and his work includes energy processes at the molecular and the physiological levels of plants.
Throughout his career, Kramer has focused on understanding the energy budget of photosynthesis and how the biophysical mechanisms work together in living organisms. The budget set by the plant enables the right amount of energy to be produced to sustain life without producing toxic side reactions.
Kramer believes photosynthesis does not operate anywhere near its theoretical maximum. Most of the solar energy which reaches plants is immediately, and intentionally, lost as heat. Plants shed the energy to prevent overwhelming photosynthetic capacity as too much energy causes uncontrollable toxic side reactions. Kramer’s research is meant to determine whether the efficiency of photosynthesis can be improved and the consequences of such improvements.
The effects of changing plant characteristics are difficult to predict and a traditional research technique has been to remove a gene or regulatory pathway to study the changed plant under controlled laboratory conditions. Often these plants perform well under lab conditions, but fail under field conditions where the moisture, sunlight, and temperature vary. To meet this challenge, Kramer has expanded his research to include the field of phenomics.
Phenomics uses advanced technology to quickly probe large numbers of complex phenotypes of organisms.
“The great promise of phenomics is that revealing detailed properties of the plant under a wide range of conditions we can link physiological, biochemical, biophysical, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and developmental information,” says Kramer. “This integrated view can dramatically accelerate both basic and applied plant science.”
Kramer and his research group in the Plant Research Laboratory have set up six rooms with controlled conditions and the latest sensory equipment. Plants are grown under conditions closely mimicking those in the field, including temperature and moisture variations, and the researchers are able to track large-scale photosynthetic changes using advanced instrumentation.
The novelty of phenomics means that the researchers must design and build much of their instrumentation, so Kramer’s team includes electrical and mechanical engineers along with plant biologists and biophysicists.
One item they have developed is the Plant Phenotype Array which makes parallel and continuous non-contact optical measurements of the plant. These measurements include characterization of photosynthesis and gene expression using endogenous and introduced fluorescent or luminescent probes.
Kramer is part of MSU’s team in the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts – a $50 million grant from the Department of Energy that works on algal bioenergy problems. Kramer is building the phenomics system which will allow all team members to use the same technology to look at the performance of different kinds of algae under different controlled conditions. This will allow them to select or engineer the next generation of algae for biofuels.
Before joining MSU’s Plant Research Laboratory in August 2010, Kramer was a professor in the Institute of Biological Chemistry and chair of the Molecular Plant Sciences at Washington State University. He completed post-doctoral work with the Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Paris after receiving his PhD in Biophysics from the University of Illinois in 1990.
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