Dr. Richard J. DeSa

Founder and Chief Scientist

Dick DeSa, or “Chief” as he is widely known, is that exceedingly uncommon scientist/ instrumentalist/ inventor. His expertise spans electronics, optics, software, biochemistry, and engineering.

After a years of developing products for his own personal use at home and in the laboratory, a colleague asked about buying DeSa’s data acquisition software for a stopped-flow spectrophotometry system. The first purchase order came in 1976. Within six years, there was enough activity to encourage the Chief to resign his tenured associate professor position (biochemistry) at the University of Georgia. He told his disappointed chairman, “I cannot serve two masters, and if I have the safety net of the university, I know I will not commit entirely to this new venture.”

He and his wife, Marcia, were hand-producing everything from their home, joined by full- and part-time graduate students, post-docs, and neighbors, one of whom still “takes napkin drawings and turns them into instruments that work.” 

Across the decades, the Chief has designed, produced, and computerized uniquely appropriate products for researchers in nearly 40 countries, traveling himself to do the installations at hundreds of these laboratories. He loves to tell you about “visiting Brazil for a haircut” (three times at one barbershop, where no one spoke English, but everyone recognized “the American with a Portuguese name”) and being honored by the exquisite care given him throughout Asia “where I wasn’t allowed to even carry my own suitcase.”

This 1904 description of a successful life by Bessie Anderson Stanley could have been written about Dick DeSa, who remains happy to talk with you about your current and potential OLIS instrument:

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children, who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had, whose life was an inspiration, whose memory a benediction.”

From Antonio Peña, October 2017:

It is hard for me to remember when exactly I had the fortune, first to hear from Dr. DeSa, and then meet him in person, and mostly to be able to take advantage of the technology he has developed for so many years. Particularly during the first years, there was the additional pleasure of knowing that all the excellent products and services provided by OLIS Inc were supported by a family enterprise.

Through the years, not only my laboratory, but others in our Institute and other places in Mexico, had acquired high precision spectrophotometers as well as spectrofluorometers invented by Britton Chance. However, in a few years we saw the disappearance of brands like Aminco, SLM, American Optical, and finally nothing... so, the only possible future for our instruments was that they lasted forever, without any hope for service.

But one day we heard about a new company, OLIS Instruments. It sounded unbelievable, because

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 it not only would allow us to preserve our instruments, but more so, have them modernized, with a computer attached, allowing us to forget about the use of pen recorders, but also, through the years, enjoy the growing possibilities to process the data and refined our findings.

So we started to seek for the funds necessary to modernize our equipments, and in the process, for some reason, one day we decided to go to Bogart GA and see by ourselves the origin and structure of that miracle. We were surprised at first, the place was not very small, but also not that of the very large companies we were used to see. But perhaps the most pleasant an original surprise was that OLIS Inc was an enterprise, requiring of course, the mastermind of Richard DeSa, who progressively moved from the modernization of different types of equipments, to develop more and more elaborate ones, such as the RSM 1000, and the most recent, the OLIS CLARiTY. But most interesting was that, particularly during its first years, OLIS was operated by a group which is not only remarkable as such, but a wonderful family followed by an extraordinary community.

I want to mention a particular experience with Dr. DeSa: while trying to get the modernization of one of our equipment, we could not raise the funds to complete the full cost. I wrote him, and he gave me a very substantial discount, for which I have always been grateful, but also shows one of his important personal characteristics: generosity before business.

With the modernization of our first spectrophotometer we had the fortune that the whole modification was installed by Richard DeSa himself, who came with his wife, and had the opportunity to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacan. It has been many years that we have enjoyed the attention, support and kindness, not only from the DeSa’s, but also from each and everyone, not employees, but members of a community. So, I end up by wishing the best to OLIS, but more than that, to the wonderful DeSa family and thanking heaven for having put them in my way, an all my admiration to Richard DeSa.

And when he wasn’t working on his doctorate or related research, Dick was developing other products that built up expertise in electronics. Two phrases in this paper encapsulate he considers the pinnacle of good design: (1) “… excellent performance without rare parts of difficult adjustments” and (2) “No special care is needed …top-quality components are used throughout …will maintain its superior performance for many years.”

Developer, Dr. Richard J. DeSa, with an Olis CLARiTY

PUBLICATIONS:

View Dr. DeSa's Researchgate profile here.

The genesis of the method and computerization for the OLIS CPL spectrometers can be found in this 1974 work, and later in this 2004 US Patent.

"About three years after this paper in 1976, John Wampler and Dr. DeSa installed this same data collection system on a Cary 118 and one for the Gibson Durrum Stopped Flow apparatus in my lab at Rice University. They worked flawlessly. It was the second time I used on of the DeSa data collection systems."

John Olson, Rice University, August 2020

Just remarkable Photoregeneration studies were done by Dr. Gonzalez-Fernandez using living retina and a CLARiTY 1000!

Perhaps the first emission measurement made on an OLIS RSM 1000 was using a single firefly. During one second of collection time, she flashed three times. These still unique results (circa 1992) were included in this current paper.

Curriculum Vitae:

1974 - 1980

Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Georgia.

The application of digital computer techniques to biochemical problems. Extensive experience in Assembly language programming, data acquisition, video display of data, and related activities. Concurrently, was rated among the best undergraduate and graduate instructors in biochemistry courses, notably "Enzyme Kinetics." Tenure granted, 1974.

1968 - 1974

Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Georgia.

1965 - 1968

Post-doctoral Fellow, Dept of Biochemistry, Cornell University.

Advisor: Quentin H. Gibson, M.D., Ph.D. Developed analog and digital computer software for high speed data acquisition and analysis as applied to chemical kinetics and biochemical problems.

1964 - 1965

Post-doctoral Fellow, Biochemistry, Johnson Res Fndn, Univ of Pennsylvania.

Advisor: Quentin H. Gibson, M.D., Ph.D.

1961 - 1964

Pre-doctoral Fellow, NIH, Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana.

Doctorate awarded in Biochemistry, 1964. Doctoral Dissertation "The Discovery, Isolation and Partial Characterization of a Bioluminescence Particle from the Marine Dinoflagellate Gonyaulax polyedra." With Woody Hastings, Ph.D.

1959 - 1961

Pre-doctoral Fellow and Teaching Assistant, Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana

1959

Bachelor of Science, biology, St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY

CHAPTERS

Methods in Enzymology, 2004

EFFICIENT INTEGRATION OF KINETIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION SETS USING MATRIX EXPONENTIATION. I.B.C. Matheson, L.J. Parkhurst and R.J. De Sa

Methods in Enzymology, 2004

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO INTERPRETATION OF SVD RESULTS. R.J. DeSa and I.B.C. Matheson

PATENTS

Sample holder with intense magnetic field.

US Patent 7,092,085, issued Aug 15, 2006

Device for enabling slow and direct measurement of fluorescence polarization.

US Patent 6,970,241, issued Nov 29, 2005

Subtractive double grating monochromator with moving intermediate slit.

US Patent 5,285,254, issued Feb 8, 1994

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS

Robust Multicomponent Analysis applied to the Separation of Components in a mixture of Absorbing Species. I. B. C. Matheson and R. J. DeSa, Computers and Chemistry, 14, 157-164 (1990).

Fluorescence emission and stopped-flow kinetic studies of the acid expansion of bovine serum albumin, Brewer JM, DeSa RJ, Wampler JE, Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1976 May 23;76(2):572-8

Mechanism of action of putrescine oxidase. Binding characteristics of the active site of putrescine oxidase from Micrococcus rubens, Swain WF, Desa RJ, Biochim Biophys Acta. 1976 Apr 8;429(2):331-41.

Rapid-scanning Stopped-flow Study of the Oxidation of PMNH2 by O2 Catalyzed by Bacterial Luciferase. G. J. Faini, Richard J. DeSa, and John Lee, Flavins and Flavoproteins, T. P. Singer, Chapter 7 (1976).

Recording Polarization of Fluorescence Spectrometer - A Unique Application of Piezoelectric Birefringence Modulation.  John E. Wampler and Richard J. DeSa, Analytical Chemistry, 46563 (1974).

A Laboratory Computer System for Biochemical Research. Richard J. DeSa, Computers in Chemical and Biochemical Research, 1, (1972).

Putrescine oxidase from Micrococcus rubens. Purification and properties of the enzyme DeSa, RJ, J Biol Chem. 1972 Sep 10;247(17):5527-34

Stopped flow spectrophotometric studies of yeast enolase subunit interaction Brewer JM, DeSa RJ, J Biol Chem. 1972 Dec 25;247(24):7941-7

An On-Line Spectrofluorimeter System for Rapid Collection of Absolute Luminescence Spectra. John E. Wampler and Richard J. DeSa, Applied Spectroscopy, 25, No. 6, 623-627 (1971).

A simple precision current-regulated power supply for laboratory lamps DeSa, RJ, Anal Biochem. 1970 May;35(1):293-6

Investigations of the chymotrypsin-catalyzed hydrolysis of specific substrates. IV. Pre-steady state kinetic approaches to the investigation of the catalytic hydrolysis of esters. Himoe A, Brandt KG, DeSa RJ, Hess GP. J Biol Chem. 1969 Jul 10;244(13):3483-93.

A Practical Automatic Data Acquisition System for Stopped-flow Spectrophotometry.

R. J. DeSa and Q. H. Gibson, Computers and Biomedical Research, 2, 494-505 (1969).

A Practical Approach to Interpretation of SVD Results.

DeSa and Matheson. MIE.2004

Efficient Integration of Kinetic Differential Equiation Sets.

Matheson, Parkhurst, DeSa. MIE.2004

EARLY RESEARCH WITH J. WOODLAND HASTINGS

DeSa, R. and Hastings, J.W. (1968) The characterization of scintillons: Bioluminescent particles from the marine dinoflagellate, Gonyaulax polyedra..J. Gen. Physiol. 51: 105-22.

Hastings, J.W., Vergin, M., and DeSa, R. (1966) Scintillons: The biochemistry of dinoflagellate bioluminescence. In: Bioluminescence in Progress (F.H. Johnson and Y. Haneda, eds. ), pp. 301-329, Princeton University Press.

DeSa, R.J., Hastings, J.W. and Vatter, A.E. (1963) Luminescent "crystalline" particles: An organized subcellular bioluminescent system. Science 141: 1269-1270.

Bode, V.C., DeSa, R.J. and Hastings, J.W. (1963) Daily rhythm in luciferin activityin Gonyaulax polyedra.. Science 141: 913-915

DeSa (1966) Build a COP 30/30 Radio-Electronics