LS- International Journal of Life Sciences
  • Year: 2025
  • Volume: 14
  • Issue: 1

Donald Ashley Bryant (1950–2024): An Extraordinary Cyano-Bacteriologist

  • Author:
  • Govindjee Govindjee1,*, Anthony William Derek Larkum2,**, Nathan Thomas Soulier3,***
  • Total Page Count: 19
  • Published Online: Jun 20, 2025
  • Page Number: 1 to 19

1Professor Emeritus, Department of Plant Biology, Department of Biochemistry, and Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL61801, USA

2Professor Emeritus, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

3Research Scholar, Department of Molecular Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA92093, USA

*(Corresponding author) email id: gov@illinois.edu

**a.larkum@sydney.edu.au

***nsoulier@ucsd.edu

##This Tribute to the Late Professor D.A. Bryant was written at the invitation of Professor Ashwani Kumar, Editor-in-Chief, of LS: International Journal of Life Sciences (India)

Abstract

Donald (Don) A. Bryant was a leading microbial eco-physiologist in recent times. He focused on cyanobacteria by exploiting cutting-edge genetics, genomics and several aspects of molecular biology to understand their biochemistry and biophysics. In 2022, after almost five decades of outstanding university service, his generosity for education and the younger generation motivated him to donate two million US dollars to support a chair professorship in Microbial Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Eberly College of Science, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA. After briefly discussing his personal and academic life, we present brief summaries of his research contributions, selected by the authors. This is followed by messages from Susan Golden, Lou Sherman, and Annick Wilmott. The Appendix lists some URL’s on Don Bryant.

Keywords

Donald (Don) A. Bryant, Photosynthesis, Cyanobacteria, Phycobilisomes, Phycobiliproteins, Photoacclimation, Phylogeny, Genome sequencing, Chlorosomes