Affiliate Professor
Fields of Interest
Biography
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960
B.S., University of California, Los Angeles, 1956
Thomas Spiro moved his laboratory to University of Washington in 2007 after a long career on the faculty of Princeton University, where he was chair of the Chemistry Department. The role of metal ions in biology has been the principal theme of his research. His laboratory pioneered the application of laser resonance Raman spectroscopy, including time-resolved techniques, to the structure and reactivity of metalloproteins, and to the mechanisms of protein folding and allostery. At Princeton, he developed courses in environmental chemistry, and co-authored a text-book, Chemistry of the Environment.
Awards and Honors
Eraldo Antonini Lifetime Achievement Award, International Conference on Porphyrins and Pthalocyanins, 2010
ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry, 2004
Biophysical Society Founders Award, 2004
Festshcrift Issue, Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2000
Wellcome Visiting Professor in the Basic Medical Sciences, University of British Columbia, 1999
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1991
Research
Selected Research
- Spiro, Thomas G.; Spiro, Helen H.; Soldatova, Alexandra. 2025. Earth Wise: A Guide to Today's Environmental Issues. McFarland. 978-1476698083.
- Cryo-EM Structure of the Mnx Protein Complex Reveals a Tunnel Framework for the Mechanism of Manganese BiomineralizationIrina V. Novikova, Alexandra V. Soldatova, Trevor H. Moser, Stephanie M. Thibert, Christine A. Romano, Mowei Zhou, Bradley M. Tebo, James E. Evans, and Thomas G. SpiroJournal of the American Chemical Society 2024 146 (33), 22950-22958DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c06537
- Soldatova, A. V.; Spiro, T. G., Alternative modes of O2 activation in P450 and NOS enzymes are clarified by DFT modeling and resonance Raman spectroscopy. Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry 2020, 207, 111054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2020.111054
- Balakrishnan, G.; Soldatova, A. V.; Reid, P. J.; Spiro, T. G. Ultrafast charge transfer in nickel phthalocyanine probed by femtosecond Raman-Induced Kerr Effect Spectroscopy. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2014, 136 (24), 8746–8754. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja503541v
- Spiro, T. G.; Purvis-Roberts, K. L.; Stigliani, W. M., Chemistry of the environment. 3rd ed.; University Science Books: Mill Valley, California, 2012.
- Butterfield, C. N.; Soldatova, A. V.; Lee, S.-W.; Spiro, T. G.; Tebo, B. M., Mn(II,III) oxidation and MnO₂ mineralization by an expressed bacterial multicopper oxidase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2013, 110 (29), 11731-11735. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1303677110
- Vaughn, M. B.; Zhang, J.; Spiro, T. G.; Dyer, R. B.; Klinman, J. P., Activity-related microsecond dynamics revealed by temperature-jump Förster resonance energy transfer measurements on thermophilic alcohol dehydrogenase. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2018, 140 (3), 900–903. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.7b12369
- Soldatova, A. V.; Balakrishnan, G.; Oyerinde, O. F.; Romano, C. A.; Tebo, B. M. Spiro, T. G., Biogenic and synthetic MnO2 nanoparticles: size and growth probed with absorption and Raman spectroscopies and dynamic light scattering. Environmental Science & Technology 2019, 53 (8), 4185-4197. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b05806
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