Richard Mathies's Biography

Richard Mathies, Professor, University of California Berkeley

Richard A. Mathies received his B. S. Degree in Chemistry in 1968 at the University of Washington working with Martin Gouterman. He earned the M. S. Degree in 1970 and the Ph. D. in 1973 in Physical Chemistry at Cornell University from Andreas Albrecht. Following two years of postdoctoral study as a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University with Lubert Stryer, he moved to the Chemistry Department at the University of California at Berkeley in 1976 where he is G. N. Lewis Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Chemistry. Mathies' biophysical research is focused on the use of resonance Raman and time resolved optical spectroscopy to elucidate the structure and reaction dynamics of energy and information transducing photoactive proteins. His extensive work on the photochemistry of the visual pigment rhodopsin has established the structure of the primary photoproduct using time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy, demonstrated that the primary cis-to-trans photoisomerization in vision is complete in only 200 fs, and analyzed the nonstationary state or wavepacket evolution that defines the excited state isomerization mechanism. His recent development of femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy provides a revolutionary new way to study the structural dynamics of photochemical and photophysical processes with complete high resolution Raman vibrational spectra and <50 fs time resolution. Mathies' work in the area of biotechnology and the Human Genome Project led to the development of new high-speed, high-throughput DNA analysis technologies such as capillary array electrophoresis and energy transfer (ET) fluorescent dye labels for DNA sequencing and analysis. In particular, his development of ET fluorescent labels was a critical contribution to the early completion of the Human Genome sequence. He also pioneered the development of microfabricated capillary electrophoresis devices and microfabricated integrated sample preparation and detection methods for lab-on-a-chip analysis systems that are being applied to DNA sequencing, diagnostics, forensics, pathogen detection and space exploration. Mathies is author of more than 430 publications and 40 patents on biophysical chemistry, photochemistry, photobiology, bioanalytical chemistry and genome analysis technology. He has also been active in consulting and working with biotechnology companies including Affymax, Affymetrix, Molecular Dynamics, US Biochemical, Amersham-Pharmacia, Bio-Rad, Singulex, IntegenX and C8-Medisensors among others.