Donald Glaser

Donald Glaser is a pioneering American physicist and neurobiologist and, for more than 50 years, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a brilliant young physicist at the University of Michigan, who became frustrated when he tried to observe the tracks of atom particles. Glaser experimented with using superheated liquid in a glass chamber, and found that strange particles would leave a track of bubbles as they passed through the liquid, and their tracks could be photographed. His new invention ’Ŭ called the ’źbubble chamber’Ź ’Ŭ was ideal for use with high-energy accelerators and paved the way for many important discoveries. Glaser won a Nobel Prize for Physics for it at the age of 34. Glaser then switched his interests from the basic particles of matter to fundamental molecules of life in 1962. He worked in UC Berkeley’Ŵs Virus Lab doing experiments with bacteria and mammalian cells and studied the development of cancer cells. As with the bubble chamber, he used his experience designing equipment to improve the experimental process. In 1971, he co-founded Cetus Corporation and became the Chairman of its Science Advisory Board. The company founders felt that the knowledge scientists had gained about DNA had not yet been applied to solve real problems. The company did genetic engineering and became the world’Ŵs first biotechnology company. Professor Glaser spoke to the student delegates and answered their questions at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco about his research in molecular biology and neuroscience.