David Wilson Deamer (born April 21, 1939) is an American biologist and Research Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
[3] As a young professor at UC Davis, Deamer continued to work with electron microscopy, revealing for the first time particles related to functional ATPase enzymes within the membranes of sarcoplasmic reticulum.
[7] In collaborative work with Mark Akeson, a post-doctoral student at the time, the two established methods for monitoring proton permeation through ion channels such as gramicidin.
[8] In 1989, while returning from a scientific meeting in Oregon, Deamer conceived that it might be possible to sequence single molecules of DNA by using an imposed voltage to pull them individually through a nanoscopic channel.
[9] In 1993, he and Dan Branton initiated a research collaboration with John Kasianowitz at NIST to explore this possibility with the hemolysin channel, and in 1996 published the first paper demonstrating that nanopore sequencing may be feasible.
[11] Mark Akeson joined the research effort in 1997, and in 1999 published a paper showing that the hemolysin channel, now referred to as a nanopore, could distinguish between purine and pyrimidine bases in single RNA molecules.