David Kramer

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Expert in biofuels, photosynthesis

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Biography

Hannah Distinguished Professor in Photosynthesis and Bioenergetics. Energetics and control of photosynthesis electron and proton transfer reactions reactive oxygen generation the conversion of light energy by plants into forms usable for life understanding the processes involved at both molecular and physiological levels, how they are regulated and controlled how these processes define the energy budget of plants and the ecosystem how plants have evolved to support life in extreme environments

Among the tools used in Dr. Kramer’s lab are spectroscopic approaches including absorption, fluorescence, circular dichroism and electron spin resonance (EPR) applied to isolated membranes, organelles and intact plants. Students in the laboratory gain wide exposure to biophysical techniques and the important area of bioenergetics.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Environmental Services
Energy
Biotechnology

Areas of Expertise

Biochemistry
Molecular Biology
Photosynthesis
Energy & Renewable Energy
Plant Biology
Phenotyping
Phenomics

Accomplishments

Research Innovation Award

2016-08-22

Awarded by the the International Society of Photosynthesis Research.

Education

University of Illinois

Ph.D.

Biophysics

1990

University of Dayton

M.S.

Cell Biology

1986

University of Dayton

B.S.

Biology

News

MSU's David Kramer Wins International Innovation Prize

MSU Today  

2016-08-22

David Kramer, MSU Hannah Distinguished Professor in photosynthesis and bioenergetics, is the 2016 recipient of the International Society of Photosynthesis Research Innovation Award.

This is the second major award for Kramer in 2016, the other being the prestigious Charles F. Kettering award for excellence in Photosynthesis Research...

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MSU Builds High-Tech Test Track to Improve Crop Performance

MSU Today  

2016-07-12

“With DEPI and all of its specialized equipment, we can make videos of a plants’ living processes,” said David Kramer, Hannah Distinguished Professor in Photosynthesis and Bioenergetics at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and the paper’s co-author. “One way to make better plants is to test drive a range of plants with different genes and determine which genes, or combination of genes, make the plant better in different environmental conditions.”...

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MSU Partners with ExxonMobil to Advance Biofuel Research

MSU Today  

2015-09-30

David Kramer, MSU’s John Hannah Distinguished Professor in Photosynthesis and Bioenergetics at the MSU-DOE Plant and Research Laboratory, says that the overall goal of the partnership is to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in microalgae to produce biofuels and bioproducts.

“Photosynthesis is the biological process that plants and algae use to store solar energy in biomass. It is how all our food is made, and we would starve without it,” said Kramer, who is leading the grant with Ben Lucker with the PRL and Joe Weissman, Distinguished Scientific Associate at ExxonMobil...

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Journal Articles

Voltage-sensitive rhodol with enhanced two-photon brightness

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

2017

We have designed, synthesized, and applied a rhodol-based chromophore to a molecular wire-based platform for voltage sensing to achieve fast, sensitive, and bright voltage sensing using two-photon (2P) illumination. Rhodol VoltageFluor-5 (RVF5) is a voltage-sensitive dye with improved 2P cross-section for use in thick tissue or brain samples. RVF5 features a dichlororhodol core with pyrrolidyl substitution at the nitrogen center. In mammalian cells under one-photon (1P) illumination, RVF5 demonstrates high voltage ...

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A shadow detector for photosynthesis efficiency

Journal of Theoretical Biology

2017

Plants tolerate large variations in the intensity of the light environment by controlling the efficiency of solar to chemical energy conversion. To do this, plants have a mechanism to detect the intensity, duration, and change in light as they experience moving shadows, flickering light, and cloud cover. Sugars are the primary products of CO 2 fixation, a metabolic pathway that is rate limited by this solar energy conversion. We propose that sugar is a signal encoding information about the intensity, duration and change in the light ...

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Comparing photosynthetic and photovoltaic efficiencies and recognizing the potential for improvement

American Association for the Advancement of Science

2011

Comparing photosynthetic and photovoltaic efficiencies is not a simple issue. Although both processes harvest the energy in sunlight, they operate in distinctly different ways and produce different types of products: biomass or chemical fuels in the case of natural photosynthesis and nonstored electrical current in the case of photovoltaics. In order to find common ground for evaluating energy-conversion efficiency, we compare natural photosynthesis with present technologies for photovoltaic-driven electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen. Photovoltaic-driven electrolysis is the more efficient process when measured on an annual basis, yet short-term yields for photosynthetic conversion under optimal conditions come within a factor of 2 or 3 of the photovoltaic benchmark. We consider opportunities in which the frontiers of synthetic biology might be used to enhance natural photosynthesis for improved solar energy conversion efficiency.

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