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About Steven
Steven Clarke is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has been on the faculty since 1978. He also serves as Director of the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute. Born in Los Angeles, he attended public schools in Altadena and Pasadena, California. Clarke earned his B.A. in Chemistry and Zoology from Pomona College in 1970, during which he conducted undergraduate research at the UCLA Brain Research Institute with Drs. James E. Skinner and Donald Lindsley on neural mechanisms of attention. He served as an NIH fellow in Dr. Peter Mitchell's laboratory at Glynn Research Laboratories in England, studying mitochondrial amino acid transport. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University in 1976 under Professor Guido Guidotti, investigating membrane protein-detergent interactions and identifying major rat liver mitochondrial polypeptides as urea cycle enzymes. Following his doctorate, Clarke completed a two-year postdoctoral appointment as a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, with Professor Dan Koshland, identifying membrane receptors for bacterial chemotaxis. He has held visiting scholar positions at Princeton University from 1986 to 1987 and at the University of Washington from 2004 to 2005.
Clarke's research focuses on the roles of novel protein methyltransferases in aging and biological regulation, with key discoveries including the protein L-isoaspartyl repair methyltransferase, the isoprenylcysteine protein methyltransferase, and the protein phosphatase 2A methyltransferase. His work explores linked protein repair, proteolysis, oxidation in aging, enzymes affecting altered protein accumulation, protein methylation in cataract formation, and control of eukaryotic function by methylation. Highly cited publications include "Protein arginine methylation in mammals: who, what, and why?" (Molecular Cell, 2009), "Deamidation, isomerization, and racemization at asparaginyl and aspartyl residues in peptides. Succinimide-linked reactions that contribute to protein degradation" (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1987), "Human PAD4 regulates histone arginine methylation levels via demethylimination" (Science, 2004), "Protein isoprenylation and methylation at carboxyl-terminal cysteine residues" (Annual Review of Biochemistry, 1992), and "Structural alterations in the peptide backbone of beta-amyloid core protein may account for its deposition and stability in Alzheimer's disease" (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1993). Clarke has received the 2018 William C. Rose Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the 2020 Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Award from Pomona College, and UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer recognition. He previously held the Elizabeth R. and Thomas E. Plott Chair in Gerontology and has led major NIH-funded projects, including R37GM026020 from 1978 to 2010 and T32GM007185.
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