The Tesmer Lab: A Family Affair

by Danielle LaVaque-Manty

The aptitude test John Tesmer took in high school said he should be a chef. Though he enjoys cooking, this didn't strike him as the best career choice. ("I don't mean to insult chefs or anything," he says.) Instead, he followed his parents' lead: his father is a physicist and his mother a microbiologist, so he split the difference and became a biophysicist.

As an undergraduate, he originally planned to major in English and physics, eventually switching to English and biochemistry. He still values the writing skills he gained in his English classes, because "the difference between a good grant proposal and a great one comes down to how you communicate your ideas. So many good grants are killed by the fact that people don't know how to write a coherent paragraph, or tell a story." He hasn't encouraged any of his own students to double-major in English, though, because as an English major, "you have to love reading lots of horribly boring eighteenth century novels."

Today, he studies the structures of proteins and protein complexes involved in G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling pathways, which play a role in the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate. One of these proteins, GRK2, has been implicated in the progression of congestive heart failure.

The potential clinical applications of his research are important to Tesmer. "There's concern among some crystallographers that they're perceived as just the go-to service people for other labs," he says. And while he thinks that role can be valuable, it isn't the one he wants to play. "These days, to be an independent structural biologist you have to be a scientist who is pursuing relevant physiological questions, the questions that are related to health, using an array of techniques—and not just crank out the structures."

He first became interested in crystallography as an undergraduate at Rice, after he applied for several lab positions in the hope of supporting himself over the summer, and ended up working for a crystallographer. He enjoyed it enough that he eventually decided to study the subject in graduate school.

He did his graduate studies at Purdue, where Janet Smith, who is now his colleague at the Life Sciences Institute, was his advisor. When he left his previous position at the University of Texas at Austin to come to the U-M in 2005, she helped him feel certain he was making the right choice. "It was good to have her vote of confidence that this was a great deal. And it is a great deal."

Tesmer's wife Valerie works in the same field he does. Not only that—she works in his lab. "We were bench partners in college, we both went to graduate school in the same program, and we got post-docs together in Dallas." After deciding not pursue a faculty career, Valerie took time off to care for their children. When she decided to return to work, she chose to work for him. "Which has been fantastic," he says. The only drawback? "We basically talk shop all the time."

Are the Tesmers' children likely to become scientists, too? "They don't have a choice," he says. "Their parents are both scientists, their grandparents are all scientists or science teachers, and a large fraction of their great-grandparents were Ph.D.s. They're roped in."

Tesmer is happy with the way his career is going, but none of his success has gone to his head. "There's a lot of luck involved in everything that we're doing," he says. "You have to be able to capitalize on your luck. It doesn't mean you're the best, it just means you were there at the right time, and had the right skills to make it happen when the chance presented itself."