Roman A. Zubarev is a professor of medicinal
proteomics in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the
Karolinska Institutet. His research focuses on the use of
mass spectrometry in biology and medicine.
Electron-capture dissociation. In 1997, while in
Fred McLafferty's lab at
Cornell University, Zubarev discovered the phenomenon of electron-capture dissociation (ECD)[1] of polypeptides. He later developed ECD and other ion-electron reactions2 as analytical techniques in Odense (1998
–2002) and Uppsala (2002
–2008).
Isotopic resonance hypothesis. Discovered the phenomenon of isotopic resonance in Uppsala (2008),[2] formulated the isotopic resonance hypothesis and experimentally verified it in Stockholm (2009
–2013).[3]
Isoaspartate theory of
Alzheimer's disease. The role of isoaspartate in Alzheimer's disease has first been suggested as early as in 1991.[4] Over the next three decades the evidence gradually accumulated, being strongly supported by blood proteomics data.[5]
Origin of life studies. Zubarev showed that the organic matter produced abiotically in a
Miller–Urey experiment can be assimilated by bacteria, and thus proved that early Earth has been a hospitable place for life.[6] For the first time in history of science, Zubarev obtained a living cell from dead matter.[7] In that landmark experiment, bacteria were separated into lipids, nucleic acids and proteins, and these ingredients were isolated and incubated separately and in a mixture. After incubation, the isolates were seeded on
Petri dish. While isolated molecules showed no growth (negative control), lipid-containing mixtures gave bacterial colonies, proving that life can self-assemble from a mixture of right ingredients.
^Zubarev, R. A.; Kelleher, N. L.; McLafferty, F. W. Electron Capture Dissociation of Multiply Charged Protein Cations. A Non-ergodic Process, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 3265-3266.
^Zubarev, R. A.; Artemenko, K. A.; Zubarev, A. R.; Mayrhofer, C.; Yang, H.; Fung, E. Y. M. Early life relict feature in peptide mass distribution, Cent. Eur. J. Biol.2010,5, 190-196.
^Xie, X.; Zubarev, R. A. Isotopic Resonance Hypothesis: Experimental Verification by Escherichia coli Growth Measurements, Scientific Reports, 2015, doi:10.1038/srep09215
^Johnson, B. A.; Shirokawa, J. M.; Geddes, J. W.; Choid, B. H.; Kim, R. C.; Aswad, D. W. Protein L-isoaspartyl methyltransferase in postmortem brains of aged humans, Neurobiology of Aging, 1991, 12, 19-24.
^Yang, H.; Lyutvinskiy, Y.; Herukka, S.-K.; Soininen, H.; Rutishauser, D.; Zubarev, R. A. Prognostic polypeptide blood plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease progression,J Alzheimer’s Disease,2014,40, 659-66.
^Xie, X.; Backman, D.; Lebedev, A. T.; Artaev, V. B.; Jiang, L.; Ilag, L. L.; Zubarev, R. A. Primordial soup was edible: abiotically produced Miller-Urey mixture supports bacterial growth,Scientific Reports,2015, 5, article number: 14338, doi:10.1038/srep14338
^Bernadotte, A.; Semenova, V.; Musial, V. A. M.; Kasprzykowska, A.; Zubarev, R. A. Self-assembly of Deinococcus radiodurans supports nanocell scenario of life origin, Discoveries,2017, 5, E72, doi: 10.15190/d.2017.2.