David W. Deamer

David Wilson Deamer (born April 21, 1939) is an American biologist and research professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Deamer has made contributions to the field of membrane biophysics. His work led to a novel method of DNA sequencing and a more complete understanding of the role of membranes in the origin of life.

He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985, which supported research at the Australian National University in Canberra to investigate organic compounds in the Murchison meteorite. He served as the president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life from 2013 to 2014.

Early life Deamer's father, also David, worked at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, California, during and after World War II while his mother Zena cared for Deamer and his two brothers, Richard and John. In 1952, the family moved to Ohio, where the three brothers attended Westerville High School. In 1957, Deamer submitted his research on self-organizing protozoa to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and was among the 40 winners who were invited to Washington DC that year. He was awarded a full scholarship to Duke University, where he completed a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1961. In 1994, he joined the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he became a research professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry. He later co- founded the Department of Biomolecular Engineering and served as its chair from 2003 to 2006.

Nanopore Sequencing In 1993, he and Dan Branton initiated a research collaboration with John Kasianowitz at NIST to explore this possibility with the hemolysin channel, and in 1996 published the first paper demonstrating that nanopore sequencing may be feasible. He demonstrated that amphiphilic molecules found in meteorites can self-assemble into membrane- like structures, offering insights into the potential precursors to life on Earth. His experiments with hydration-dehydration cycles revealed pathways for the encapsulation of polymers in primitive vesicles, providing a possible mechanism for the emergence of protocells.