David W. Christianson
David W. Christianson is an American biochemist and structural biologist. He has served on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Pennsylvania since 1988, where he is currently the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology. His research focuses on enzyme structure, mechanism, and inhibition, and he has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Along with Professor Karen Allen at Boston University, he is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the well-known serial Methods in Enzymology.
Early life
Christianson was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and grew up in the neighboring town of North Attleboro. His parents, Ronald and Florence Christianson, were graduates of the New England Conservatory of Music and taught in the North Attleboro public schools. Christianson developed his interest in chemistry as an elementary school student and his teachers encouraged this interest through his high school years. Christianson's high school research project involved the quantitation of methane output from decomposing sewage acquired from the town sewage treatment plant; Christianson received state-wide recognition for this work during the 1979 oil crisis. Christianson graduated from North Attleboro High School in 1979. A musician by avocation, Christianson served as Organist and Choirmaster at the First Baptist Church of North Attleboro, and then at the First Congregational Church of Melrose, Massachusetts.Education and Research
Christianson earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1983, and remained at Harvard University to complete his master's and doctoral studies in 1985 and 1987, respectively. He was a doctoral student in the research group of William N. Lipscomb. Christianson’s doctoral studies established the structural basis for the catalytic mechanism of the zinc protease carboxypeptidase A.Christianson joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1988, and is currently the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Christianson's research focuses on enzyme structure, mechanism, and inhibition. Highlights of Christianson’s research accomplishments include some of the first crystal structures of site-specific variants of an enzyme, human carbonic anhydrase II, including variants with engineered zinc binding sites with applications as metal ion biosensors. In 1996, he reported the first crystal structure of an enzyme in the arginase-deacetylase superfamily, arginase I, later discovering that this manganese metalloenzyme regulates the nitric oxide-dependent processes underlying sexual arousal. Subsequent work in this enzyme superfamily included crystal structure determinations of histone deacetylases 6, 8, and 10 complexed with inhibitors, as well as the surprising discovery that HDAC10 is a highly specific polyamine deacetylase. Christianson has also led the field of terpene synthase structural biology with the first crystal structure determination of a bacterial sesquiterpene cyclase in 1997, followed by landmark structures of hemiterpene, monoterpene, and diterpene synthases from bacteria, fungi, and plants. Later, Christianson was the first to report structures of bifunctional “assembly-line” terpene synthases, along with the discovery that some of these bifunctional enzymes engage in substrate channeling between active sites.
Christianson's research accomplishments have been recognized by the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry and the Repligen Corporation Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes from the Biological Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, and the American Chemical Society Philadelphia Section Award. Christianson was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. Earlier in his career at Penn, Christianson received the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, a Searle Scholar Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. Christianson is a member of the American Chemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
In 2009, Christianson was presented with the Joseph W. Martin, Jr. Distinguished Alumni Award from the North Attleboro High School Alumni Association, an honor that was also recognized by a citation from the Massachusetts Senate.
Christianson has also been recognized by numerous lectureships in the US and abroad, including the John Wriston Lecture at the University of Delaware, the Pennsylvania Drug Discovery Institute Award Lecture, the Luojia Lecture at Wuhan University, the Chemistry & Biochemistry Distinguished Lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Drug Research Academy Lecture at the University of Copenhagen, and the Warwick Structural Biology Lecture at the University of Warwick.
To date, Christianson has published more than 300 papers and has deposited 571 protein structures in the Protein Data Bank. Protein structures determined in his research group have been featured five times as the "PDB Molecule of the Month".