Dr. Richard B. Thompson

Dr. Richard B. Thompson
Assistant Professor

108 N, Greene Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-706-7142
Fax: 410-706-8297

EDUCATION

1975 B.A., Biology, Northwestern University
1981 Ph.D., Biochemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

POST GRADUTE EDUCATION

1981 – 1984    Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland School of
                      Medicine National Research Council Associate
1984 – 1986    Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1986 – 1990    Research Chemist (GS-12) to Supervisory Research Chemist (GM-                      13) Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering U.S. Naval
                      Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
1990 – 1993    Research Associate Professor Department of Biochemistry and
                      Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1993 – 1999    Assistant Professor Department of Biochemistry and
                      Molecular Biology University of Maryland School of Medicine
1999 – Present Associate Professor Department of Biochemistry and
                       Molecular Biology University of Maryland School of Medicine

Research Description
The major thrust of my research is aimed at the development of optical fiber sensors for clin-ical and diagnostic use. These sensors usually function by using a biochemical transducer to indicate the presence or level of a particular chem-ical analyte in solution as a change in the fluorescence, which we can measure through an optical fiber. Like fiber optic bore-scopes, such sensors can be used with patients in vivo, and they also permit continuous, real-time measurement of the analyte, in the man-ner of a pH meter. Our goals are several-fold:

to develop very sensitive, generally useful sensors
to develop sensors for analytes that are in-ac-ces-sible or whose levels change too rapidly for classical clinical chemistry technology
and to advance the state of the art of these devices for applications in research and treatment

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

J. D. Dattelbaum, L. L. Looger, D. E. Benson, K. M. Sali, R. B. Thompson, and H. W. Hellinga, “Analysis of allosteric signal transduction mechanisms in an engineered fluorescent maltose biosensor,” Protein Science 14 (2), 284 - 291 (2005).

L. J. Giblin, A. Krezel, D. J. McAdoo, R. A. Mueller, Y. Zeng, R. V. Balaji, R. Masalha, R. B. Thompson, C. A. Fierke, J. M. Sarvey, M. D. Valdenebro, D. S. Prough, and M. H. Zornow, “Concentrations of extracellular free zinc (pZn) in the central nervous system of man, rat, and rabbit during anesthesia, ischemia, and reperfusion,” Experimental Neurology, in the press (2005).

H. H. Zeng,, R. B. Thompson, B. P. Maliwal, G. R. Fones, J.W. Moffett, and C. A. Fierke, “Real-time determination of picomolar free Cu(II) in seawater using a fluorescence-based fiber optic biosensor, “ Analytical Chemistry 75 (24) 6807 - 6812 (2003).

R. B. Thompson, M. L. Cramer, R. Bozym, and C. A. Fierke, “Excitation ratiometric fluorescent biosensor for zinc ion at picomolar levels,” J. Biomed. Optics 7 (4), 555 - 506 (2002).

R. B. Thompson, D. Peterson, W. Mahoney, M. Cramer, B. P. Maliwal, S. W. Suh, C. Frederickson, C. Fierke, and P. Herman, “Fluorescent zinc indicators for neurobiology,” J. Neuroscience. Methods 118, 63 - 75 (2002).

R. B. Thompson, I. Gryczynski, and J. Malicka, “Fluorescence polarization standards for high throughput screening and imaging,” BioTechniques.32(1), 34 - 42 (2002).

C. J. Frederickson, S. W. Suh, J.-Y. Koh, Y.-K. Cha, R. B. Thompson, C. J. LaBuda, R. V. Balaji, and M. P. Cuajungco, “Depletion of intracellular zinc from neurons by use of an extracellular chelator in vivo and in vitro,” Histochem. Cytochem.50 (12) 1659 - 1662 (2002).