Joseph Lyman DeRisi is an American biochemist, specializing in

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

, parasitology, genomics,

virology Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, th ...

, and computational biology.

Life

He received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1992) from the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1999) from Stanford University. Joseph DeRisi is a co-president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and Chair of the Department of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

(UCSF) with a joint appointment at the

California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) is a nonprofit research and technology commercialization institute affiliated with three University of California campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area: Berkeley, San Francisco, and ...

(QB3). He is a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. DeRisi's best-known achievements are printing the first whole genome expression array, performing the first broad analysis of differential gene expression in cancer cells, profiling gene expression throughout the lifecycle of the

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

-causing protozoan '' Plasmodium falciparum'', his discovery of the

SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''seve ...

virus, and pioneering virus discovery using gene hybridization array and DNA sequencing technologies. DeRisi uses microarrays extensively in his work, and has designed and built both hardware and software for microarrays. He is a proponent of open access to microarray technology, and maintains a website with software and protocols for microarray operations. He is also a proponent of

open access publishing Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

, and has publications in the

Public Library of Science PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012 ) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and laun ...

journals. DeRisi has identified putative disease-causing viruses in humans (cancer,

, other respiratory infections, paraneoplastic encephalitis, etc.), and animals ranging from parrots and cockatiels to honeybees and boa constrictors. He and a research partner, Don Ganem, have identified a parasite, '' Nosema ceranae'', that appears to be responsible for colony collapse among honeybees. He has also de-bunked the relation of viruses to certain subsets of human cancer. Perhaps most relevant to contemporary global health, based on extensive characterization of the

-causing pathogen, '' Plasmodium falciparum'', DeRisi's group has developed profoundly promising candidate drugs to cure malaria. In 2004 DeRisi was named a

MacArthur fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

(the "Genius" award), in 2008 was awarded the 14th Annual

Heinz Award The Heinz Awards are individual achievement honors given annually by the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards each year recognize outstanding individuals for their innovative contributions in three areas: the Arts, the Economy and the Enviro ...

for Technology, the Economy, and Employment, in 2013 was elected as a fellow of the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...

and to the Academy of the American Society of Microbiology, and in 2014 he received the

John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science The John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for noteworthy and distinguished accomplishments in any field of science within the charter of the Academy". Established by the America ...

from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2015, he was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, and in 2016 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...

. He was involved in the development of the ViroChip, which is used to rapidly identify viruses in bodily fluids. It was used to help identify the

Severe acute respiratory syndrome Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''sev ...

virus in 2003. He has also been involved in the development of an online platform called IDseq, backed by the

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifet ...

and Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which is used to identify viruses from metagenomic sequencing data. In 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, DeRisi led a team that turned an empty lab space adjacent to the CZ Biohub into a CLIA-certified

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

testing facility in eight days. CLIAhub became one of the nation's leading COVID-19 testing centers, processing thousands of tests per day and becoming a model for the nation. At the same time, DeRisi became an active proponent of developing a national COVID-19 surveillance system to identify and monitor the COVID-19 virus' mutations.

Awards

* 2001 Searle Scholar Award, The

Searle Scholars Program The Searle Scholars Program is a career development award made annually to the 15 young US professionals in biomedical research and chemistry considered most promising. The award was established in 1980 by a donation from the Searle family, and is ...

, Northbrook IL * 2001 JP Morgan Chase Health Award, The

Tech Museum The Tech Interactive (formerly The Tech Museum of Innovation, commonly known as The Tech) is a science and technology center that offers hands-on activities, labs, design challenges and other STEAM education resources. It is located in downtown Sa ...

of Innovation, San Jose CA * 200
Gordon Tomkins
Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics,

* 2003 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering,

David and Lucile Packard Foundation The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private foundation that provides grants to not-for-profit organizations. It was created in 1964 by David Packard (co-founder of HP) and his wife Lucile Salter Packard. Following David Packard's death ...

, Los Altos, CA * 2004 MacArthur Fellowship, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL * 2004 Wired RAVE Award, Health and Medicine,

WIRED Magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fr ...

, San Francisco, CA * 2005 BayBio Scientific Achievement Award, BayBio, San Francisco, CA * 2006 Alumni Achievement Award,

, Santa Cruz, CA * 2007 Chabot Science Award, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CA * 2008 The 14th Annual

for Technology, the Economy and Employment, Pittsburgh, PA

References

External links

DeRisi Lab

bio on site of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
microarrays.org
(

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

copy)
Joseph L. DeRisi
profile on the

site
Tech Awards, 2001 Health Award Laureate, Joseph L. DeRisi

Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering

BayBio Pantheon

Alumni Achievement Awards

2007 Chabot Science Award

The Heinz Awards, Joseph DeRisi profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Derisi, Joseph Year of birth missing (living people) Living people MacArthur Fellows University of California, San Francisco faculty Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Stanford University School of Medicine alumni University of California, Santa Cruz alumni American molecular biologists American virologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology Members of the National Academy of Medicine