Glaser, Donald Arthur 1926-
US physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he was educated at the Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, and at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), then became a professor at the University of Michigan (1949-59), and at the University of California at Berkeley (1960- ). He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for physics for inventing the 'bubble chamber' for observing the paths of elementary particles. Bubble chambers were used to discover many subatomic particles and reached their pinnacle in 1971 with the construction of 'Gargamelle', a thousand-tonne detector, but have now largely been superseded by electronic or gas detectors capable of providing data immediately. From 1964 Glaser's research interests have been in the application of physics to molecular biology.