David Mauzerall, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Laboratory of Photobiology
E-mail: mauzera@rockefeller.edu
Dr. Mauzerall’s research focuses on the photochemistry, origin and evolution of photosynthesis
and vision. His lab developed photoacoustic methods to determine enthalpy and volume
changes of individual photoreaction steps in these processes. These methods allow a very simple
and rapid measure of the efficiency of the process. By quantifying the electrostriction on initial
charge separation and the thermodynamic efficiency of photosynthetic systems, along with the
enthalpy and volume changes in the photocycle of the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin, Dr.
Mauzerall’s lab has found that, unlike simple reaction systems, those of photobiology can contain
a large entropy component. Certain steps in photosystem I during photosynthesis and in
bacteriorhodopsin are driven by entropy. His lab is now extending these measurements to the
still problematical oxygen forming system of photosynthesis.
Dr. Mauzerall’s lab has also probed the electrostatic effects within lipid bilayers by fast
interfacial photo-driven charge transfer reactions. They have found that the photochemical
formation of porphyrin cations inside a lipid bilayer greatly increases the current of hydrophobic
anions across the membrane. This research has led Dr. Mauzerall’s lab to show electrostatic
ion pumping; i.e., photochemical charge transfer across a single bilayer-water interface, creates
an electric field that can pump mobile hydrophobic ions completely across the lipid bilayer.
A third project in Dr. Mauzerall’s lab examines the formation of hydrogen from ferrous ion
at a neutral pH as a source of required reducing agents for the origin of life. The atmosphere
of the early Earth is now estimated to be largely nitrogen and carbon dioxide, not ammonia and methane. These highly reducing conditions would have allowed for the formation of
amino acids and the bases for nucleotides. Dr. Mauzerall’s research has found that the ferrous
ion, abundantly present in the Archaen Ocean, readily forms hydrogen at a neutral pH, both
thermally and photochemically. It is thus a good source of reducing power for the reduction
of nitrogen and carbon dioxide to the molecules required for the origin of life. His lab is now
trying to reduce nitrogen to ammonia with this reaction.
Dr. Mauzerall received his B.S. in chemistry from St. Michael’s College, Vermont in 1951 and
his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1954. He joined Rockefeller
University in 1954 as a research associate. He became assistant professor in 1959, associate
professor in 1964, professor in 1969 and professor
