JOHN SIMON
George Barth Geller Professor of Chemistry

Contact Information
101 Paul M. Gross Laboratories
919-660-1508 phone
919-660-1605 fax
jsimon@duke.edu

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Education

	PhD	The Dynamics and Energetics of Reactive Intermediates in Organic Photoreactions, Harvard University, 1983
	MS	Chemistry, Harvard University, 1981
	BS	Chemistry, Williams College, 1979

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Experience

	2000-present	Research Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University
	1999-present	Chairman, Department of Chemistry, Duke University
	1999-present	Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Duke University
	1998-present	George Barth Geller Professor of Chemistry, Duke University
	1990-1997	Professor, Department of Chemistry, UCSD
	1988-1990	Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, UCSD
	1985-1988	Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, UCSD
	1983-1985	Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA

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Selected Publications

1. Tong Ye, Tadeusz Sarna, John D. Simon, Ultrafast energy transfer from bound tetra(4-N,N,N,N-trimethylanilinium)porphyrin to synthetic dopa and cysteinyldopa melanins, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 77, 54-57 (2003).
2. Tong Ye, John D. Simon, The Action Spectrum for Generation of the Primary Intermediate Revealed by Ultrafast Absorption Spectroscopy Studies of Pheomelanin, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 77, 72-76 (2003).
3. Yan Liu, John D. Simon, The Effect of Preparation Procedures on the Morphology of Melanin from Ink Sac of Sepia Officinalis, Pigment Cell Research, 16, 72-80 (2003).
4. Anna Pawlak, Marta Wrona, Malgorzata Rózanowska, Mariusz Zareba, Laura E. Lamb, Joan Roberts, John D. Simon, Tadeusz Sarna, Comparison of the Aerobic Photoreactivity of A2E with its Precursor Retinal, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 77, 253-258 (2003).
5. Nicole Haralampus-Grynaviski, Laura Lamb, Christine M. R. Clancy, Christine Skumatz, Janice M. Burke, Tadeusz Sarna, John D. Simon, Spectroscopic and Morphological Studies of Human Retinal Lipofuscin Granules, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 100, 3179-3184 (2003).
   

Collaborators
Colin Chignell, Tadeusz Sarna, Joan Roberts, Michael Boulton, Janice M. Burke, Robert Dunn, Richard A. Manderville, Florian Rucker

Graduate and Postgraduate Advisors
Kevin S. Peters (PhD); Mostafa El-Sayed (Postdoc)

Recent Thesis Advisor (completed)
Kerry M. Hanson, Brian Nofsinger, (10 total)

Thesis Advisor (current)
Laura Lamb, Valerie Kempf, Lian Hong

Postdoctoral Advisor
Yong Joon Chang, Bulang Li, Susan Forest, Michael Stimson, Maurice Edington, Stuart Pullen, Yuri Il'ichev, Chris Clancy, Tong Ye, Yan Liu, Alex Samokhvalov

Research Support
Dr. Simon is a PI on 1 active grants: NIH (ID #GM 56882); Unilever Research

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Short Research Interest Descriptor

Photobiology of human pigments

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Research Interest

We are interested in the photoreactivity of melanin. Although melanin is one of the most ubiquitous of natural pigments, its chemical structure and biological role(s) are still subject to debate. Research has demonstrated that melanin plays a major role as a photoprotector in skin, especially in the UV-A region of the spectrum. There are several theories (e.g., particulate scattering, electron-transfer chemistry) as to how this photoprotection works, but the exact molecular mechanism of melanin's photoprotective process in not presently understood. Spectroscopic studies aimed at elucidating how melanin dissipates energy after absorption of light would represent a major contribution to the overall understanding of the molecular mechanism by which melanin operates. Recent photochemical studies show that UV excitation of melanin can both quench and generate active oxygen species. As a result, melanin may play both a preventive and a causative role in UV-induced carcinogenesis. The molecular details of these reactions are not known. Our program is designed to address these issues. We are performing a variety of spectroscopic and imaging measurements to address structure/function relationship in pigments.

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