David Bear was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, attended Tucson High School. He received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1972 and obtained a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978. He was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oregon Institute of Molecular Biology 1978-1982) and a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lineberger Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill 1982) From 1982 to 2015, Dr. Bear was on the faculty of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine where he was promoted to full professor in 1994. In addition to running a research program funded by NSF, NIH, DOD, MDA and AHA, which focused on messenger RNA synthesis and intracellular trafficking in muscle cells, he served as Chair of the departments of Cell Biology and Physiology 1997-2004) and Chemistry and Chemical Biology 2009-2012) He was Director of Graduate Studies 1988-1994) and Associate Dean for Admissions 1995-2011) In 2016, Dr. Bear joined the faculty of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, where his research interests are focused on the genetics of muscle cell diseases and on new methods for teaching genetics and genomics to medial students and graduate students.