Alec Follmer, Ph.D.

Alec Follmer received his B.Sc in Biochemistry from University of the Pacific in 2014 where his research experiences inspired a continued interest in biophysical chemistry. He went on to earn his PhD in Chemistry in 2019 from UC Irvine working with Prof. Tom Poulos utilizing X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamics to propose and characterize novel allosterically induced conformational dynamics in the heme-enzyme, Cytochrome P450cam. As a postdoc at Caltech with Asst. Prof. Ryan Hadt, he continued his studies on the dynamics of P450s and other porphyrin systems using ultrafast optical and X-ray spectroscopies. In 2022, he returned to UC Irvine where he is a Project Scientist working with Prof. Andy Borovik on the development and characterization of artificial metalloproteins. In Fall 2024, Alec joined the Chemistry Department at UC Davis as an Assistant Professor. In Winter 2025, he was appointed as a Visiting Physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The Follmer lab at UC Davis focuses on developing and utilizing state-of-the-art structural biology, spectroscopies, biophysics, and chemical biology methods to improve our understanding of non-equilibrium dynamics that drive the catalytic processes of metal-containing enzymes with a focus on mechanisms of allosteric regulation.