He received a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University. Joseph DeRisi is currently a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco with a joint appointment at the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences. 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-causing protozoan Plasmodium falciparum, his discovery of the SARS virus, and pioneering virus discovery using gene hybridization array and DNA sequencing technologies. Joe is also known for tackling any "cool problem" whatsoever, which generally come in the form of biological questions complicated by obstacles not surmountable without invention of new protocols and techniques. 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, and has publications in the Public Library of Science journals. DeRisi has identified putative disease-causing viruses in humans, 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. http://today.ucsf.edu/stories/ucsf-sleuths-identify-suspects-in-mystery-of-vanishing-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 malaria-causing pathogen, Plasmodium falciparum, DeRisi's group has developed profoundly promising candidate drugs to cure malaria and a model for a vaccine to prevent malaria. In 2004 DeRisi was named a MacArthur fellow, in 2008 was awarded the 14th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Employment, and in 2014 he received the John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2016 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. 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 virus in 2003. He has also been involved in the development of an online platform called IDseq, backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative which is used to identify viruses from metagenomic sequencing data.
