Technical Expertise

Douglas Lowman, Ph.D. and Chief Manager, has more than 50 years of experience in NMR characterization of small molecules and various types of polymers of industrial interest, including polyesters, polyamides, polyolefins, polyacrylates, polymethacrylates, biodegradable polymers, polyethers and polysaccharides such as cellulose and their related esters and ethers.  Doug is currently a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, Quillen College of Medicine, Johnson City, TN.  Through this association, he has collaborated with many academic scientists, both domestically and internationally, on the analysis of carbohydrates isolated from fungal cell walls using NMR in addition to numerous studies on carbohydrates for industrial applications.  During these collaborations, he developed NMR techniques for the structure characterization of oat glucan ((1-3,1-4)-ß-glucan) and fungal cell wall carbohydrates, such as (1-3)-ß-D-glucan, (1-6)-ß-D-glucan, (1-3, 1-6)-ß-D-glucan, (1-3)-α-D-glucan and D-mannans.  These carbohydrates were isolated from the cell wall of various fungi including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida albicans, C. auris, C. glabrata, C. sake, C. haemulonii, C. tropicalis, Debaryomyces hansenii, Acremonium diospyri, Aspergillus fumigatus, Malassezia sympodialis and Cryptococcus neoformans.

Based on his expertise, Doug has collaborated on structural characterizations of fungal cell wall carbohydrates using NMR with scientists from many institutions including James H. Quillen College of Medicine (Johnson City, TN), Georgetown University Medical Center (Washington, DC), Nijmegen Center for Molecular Life Sciences (Radboud University, The Netherlands), University of Utrecht (The Netherlands), National Jewish Hospital (Denver, CO), Cochin University of Science and Technology (Kerala, India), Imperial College (London, England), Duke University (Durham, NC), Tulane University (New Orleans, LA), Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden), University of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario, Canada), Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava, Slovakia), University of South Africa (Capetown, South Africa) and University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa).