New department head assumes role in July

By Ian Clift
Summer Reporter

David Asai, acting head of the department of biological sciences will becoming the full-time department head in July.

"In every aspect of David's performance he has done and outstanding job," said Harry Morrison, dean of the School of Science.

"He was one of a pool of applicants that came out of a national search," said Morrison, "He is the most competent person to come out of that process."

Asai found his interest in science while attending high school in Maui. "A long time ago in high school," he said, "The National Science Foundation had a program where they would take high school juniors and let them work in a lab for the summer."

In the 1970's, when Asai was attending school, Maui was an isolated island still mainly agricultural and without many tourists.

Asai was born in Chicago. He lived in Vermont and Kansas before finally ending up in Hawaii.

The opportunity to travel to Honolulu and the University of Hawaii was a major experience in his life.

"I worked in professor Kerry Yasunobo's lab," he said. "He was doing protein sequencing with instruments that cut off one amino acid at a time."

It wasn't the specific job he liked, but the idea of being given a problem and then being allowed to solve it in your own time. "When you're in the lab, you're sort of calling your own shots," he said.

From there Asai moved to Stanford where he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in biology from California Tech in 1979.

His postdoctoral work was performed at the University of Santa Barbara and then from 1982 to 1984 he worked he was an assistant professor of biology.

After getting stuck in a blizzard in Kansas and arriving a day late, he made it to Purdue University, in January 1985, where he has been for the last 16 and a half years.

Asai, a cell biologist, works with structures known as molecular motors. "These proteins convert chemical energy into mechanical force," he said.

His specialty is the motor dynine, which is involved in producing sperm cell flagella movement, nerve cell traffic and many other functions.

"I've been studying this molecule since I was a grad student," Asai said, "It wasn't by desire, it just sort of happened. Every once and a while you actually hit on something and that’s a really fascinating."

Asai teaches BIOL 231, Cell Structure Functions, in the fall, as well as several higher level modular classes in addition to his research and duties as acting head.

"Every year I have 350 new sophomores coming in," he said. "To me that’s very important. I enjoy the interaction and maybe some enjoy the interaction with me."

"What's cool is that next year I get to do it all again," Asai said. "A lot of the reason I do what I do has everything to do with people and nothing to do with cell biology."

Asai's parents were both Japanese Americans, sent to concentration camps in the deserts of Arizona during World War II because of the supposed security risks involved.

His father became a Christian minister because of his war experience. He took is family across the country, from small town to small town, wherever he was accepted.

These small town churches were the only places that would take his father because of his race. "This was an important part of my life," Asai said, "I happen to believe that this kind of stuff is just as important as the kind of degree you get."

"In every aspect a place like Purdue is creating the leaders of the future. We have to be as diverse as possible," he said.

Asai says we must accept that this is a growing time for biology and science in general. We must cooperate with the other units on campus focus on key areas, he said.

He enjoys spending time with his wife, Verna and his dog, Brio. He watches "The West Wing" and "The Sopranos" every week, and tries to exercise every day.

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New department head assumes role in July

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