Jonathan Singer, who helped build UC San Diego into a world leader in molecular and cell biology as one of the schools original biology faculty members, died Feb. 2 in La Jolla. He was 92.

Singer was on the chemistry faculty at Yale University when he was lured toUC San Diegoin 1961 by David Bonner, the founding chair of the universitys biology department.

Bonner believed that studying biology at the molecular level with chemistry as its basis would revolutionize the biological sciences and Singer, who had been mentored as a postdoctoral fellow by Nobel LaureateLinus Pauling, would be a perfect fit.

He was Bonners right-hand man and shared his vision of building a new kind of biology department focused on molecular approaches to all branches of the biological sciences, one that would be deeply interconnected by collaborative research, said Bill McGinnis, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences.

After Bonners death in 1964, Singer took over as the chair of the department and carried out much of his work, including planning the construction of the first building of the future School of Medicine.

In 1972, he and biochemist Garth Nicolson published a groundbreaking paper in Science on the Fluid Mosaic Model of the cell membrane, which would prove to explain a wide range of critical cellular processes, including cell-cell signaling, cell division, membrane budding and cell fusion.

In the last two decades of his life, Singer focused with colleague Nazneen Dewji on a novel approach to a treatment of Alzheimers disease that centered on the interaction between two cell membrane proteins beta-amyloid precursor protein and presenilin.

Singer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, and hewon the E. B. Wilson Award from the American Society for Cell Biology in 1991.

He also was a University Professor of the University of California, an honor that has been awarded to only 41 members of the UC faculty.

He is survived by his daughter Julianne, son Matthew, niece Laura and nephew Bill, as well as granddaughter Grace and grandson Michael.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Alzheimers Association.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

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Jonathan Singer, original UCSD faculty member, dies at 92 - The San Diego Union-Tribune