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John W. Keller Biographical Sketch
John Keller was educated at the Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a chemistry major at Ohio State he worked with Paul Gassman synthesizing the unusual propellerane tricyclo[3.2.1.01,5]octane. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with a B.S. in 1968. At Wisconsin, Keller worked in the chemistry department with the photochemist Howard Zimmerman, then completed his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Charles Heidelberger of the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research in 1976. At McArdle he discovered and characterized the hydration reactions of several polycyclic arene oxides, which are the proximate carcinogenic metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Keller stayed at Wisconsin to complete post-doctoral training in enzymology in the laboratory of Marion O'Leary. It was there that he began mechanistic studies on the dialkylglycine decarboxylase, an unusual vitamin B6-dependent enzyme isolated from soil bacteria. Keller accepted a position as assistant professor in the University of Alaska Fairbanks chemistry department in 1979. He and his wife Sue drove to Alaska carrying a vial of enzyme donated by Marion O'Leary as a boost to a nascent enzymology research career in Alaska. At UAF Keller has continued work on the enzyme. In 1989 he and his students cloned and sequenced the gene for the dialkylglycine decarboxylase, which made possible detailed structural and functional studies. These were carried out in collaboration with Michael Toney of UC-Davis, the crystallographer Hans Jansonius of the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, and Klaus Schnackerz of the University of Wuerzburg. Early work on this enzyme was supported by a National Science Foundation Research in Undergraduate Institutions grant. Since arriving in Alaska, Keller's biochemical research has branched out to include biochemical characterization of LysR-type DNA binding proteins related to metabolism of dialkylglycine amino acids, and investigation of the dialkylglycine metabolic properties of soil bacteria. The former work was recognized by two U.S. patents dealing with the control of gene expression by dialkylglycine-specific DNA binding proteins. After some years of attempting to commercialize the patents, the patents are now in the "hands of the inventor." In chemistry research, he and his students have published papers on the synthesis of unusual amino acids, and applications of computational chemistry. John Keller has authored or co-authored 24 papers in the refereed literature. Since coming to UAF he and his students have published papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Tetrahedron Letters, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education, and The Chemical Educator, among others. According to the Science Citation Index, these papers have been cited 249 times in the scientific literature from 1985 to 2005. A 1986 paper by UAF student JoNell Hamilton and Keller on the enzymatic resolution of trifluoromethylalanine in Tetrahedron Letters has been cited 37 times, including five in the last two years. As a teacher of organic chemistry, he has been deeply involved in bringing the modern tools of molecular modeling and computational chemistry into undergraduate chemistry education in Alaska. Keller was Principal Investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education in the year 2000 for installation of hardware and software for molecular modeling at four University of Alaska chemistry departments. Since then he has advocated for, and trained teachers in the use of, molecular modeling for chemistry teaching and research across Alaska.
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