Visiting scientist to shine light on glowworms

Long before the Mills Brothers were singing “glow little glowworm, glow and glimmer,” scientists were studying the strange luminescence of fireflies and glowworms.

The first mention of luminescence from fireflies and glowworms dates back to Chinese literature during the Zhou Dynasty, 1027-771 B.C.
Gerard Marriott

On Thursday and Friday, April 26-27, a prominent scientist from the University of California at Berkeley will describe some key developments in the study of bioluminescence from the investigations of Robert Boyle and the Rev. John Beale in the mid-17th century to the isolation of the molecular species responsible for bioluminescence by Raphael Dubois in the late 19th century.

Gerard Marriott, a bioengineering professor at U.C.-Berkeley, will deliver this year’s Burris Lectures at South Dakota State University.

His first message, intended for a general audience, will be at 7 p.m. Thursday in the South Dakota Art Museum auditorium.

His talk is “Light and Life: Observations and Studies of Luminescence Through the Ages.” Marriott will conclude with an account of current applications of bioluminescence in biotechnology for the detection of disease and for imaging tumors.

A 6:30 p.m. reception precedes the presentation, for which admission is free.

Marriott’s second talk, at noon Friday in Northern Plains Biostress 103, is intended for a scientific audience and also has no admission fee. That address is “Optical Switches and Actuators: High Contrast Imaging and Reversible Control of Proteins in Biological Systems.”

Marriott earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Birmingham University in the United Kingdom and his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Illinois in 1987. He did postdoctoral work in Germany and Japan before teaching at the University of Wisconsin from 2005 to 2009, after which he went to Berkeley.

In 2008, Marriott’s work with optical lock-in detection of energy transfer was recognized by Scientist magazine as one of the top 10 inventions of 2008.

The Burris Lectures are sponsored by the SDSU Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Plant Science with funds contributed by Robert Burris, a 1935 SDSU chemistry graduate. He was an award-winning biochemist at the University of Wisconsin.

The lecture series was created in 1986 with Burris as the original lecturer.

Provided by South Dakota State University