Joanne Chory

Joanne Chory
Chory at Salk in 2022
Born1955 (1955)
Died (aged 69)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materOberlin College (BS, Biology)
University of Illinois,Urbana–Champaign (PhD, Microbiology)
Known forPlant hormone biology, retrograde signaling, photobiology
AwardsGenetics Society of America Medal (2012)
Kumho Award in Plant Molecular Biology (2004)
Scientific American 50: Research Leader in Agriculture (2003)
L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science (2000)
American Society of Plant Biologists, Charles Albert Schull Award (1995)
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2018)
Gruber Prize in Genetics (2018)
Princess of Asturias Award (2019)
Benjamin Franklin Medal (2024)
Wolf Prize in Agriculture (2024)
Scientific career
FieldsPlant Biology
InstitutionsSalk Institute for Biological Studies
Doctoral advisorSamuel Kaplan
Websitehttp://www.salk.edu/faculty/chory.html

Joanne Chory (1955 – November 12, 2024) was an American plant biologist and geneticist. Chory was a professor and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[1]

Chory was the founding director of the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI),[2] an innovative carbon dioxide removal approach to fight climate change by optimizing a plant’s natural ability to capture and store carbon dioxide and adapt to different climate conditions. Chory and the HPI team aims to help plants grow bigger and stronger root systems that can absorb larger amounts of carbon by burying it in the ground in the form of suberin, a naturally occurring substance.[3][4]

Considered the most influential plant biologist of the modern era and one of the greatest scientific innovators of our time, Chory's 30 years of work has pioneered the use of molecular genetics to study how plants change their shape and size to optimize photosynthesis and growth for different environments.[5][3][6]

Chory was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society in 2011 and is the recipient of the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2019 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.[7] She holds the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology. She is also an adjunct professor in the Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, UC San Diego.[8] Chory and her HPI team received a $35 million award in support of the initiative from the TED Audacious Project in 2019 and another $30 million from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020.[9][10]

  1. ^ "Professor Joanne Chory ForMemRS". The Royal Society. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  2. ^ "Harnessing Plants Initiative".
  3. ^ a b "Joanne Chory: Professor and Director". Salk.
  4. ^ Hahn, Jane (2021-04-28). "Joanne Chory is using plants to save the planet". Washington Post. Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  5. ^ "Into the Light: A Profile of Joanne Chory". The Scientist. 2020.
  6. ^ "Ted2019. Joanne Chory: How supercharged plants could slow climate change". Ted.
  7. ^ IT, Developed with webControl CMS by Intermark. "Joanne Chory and Sandra Myrna Díaz – Laureates – Princess of Asturias Awards". The Princess of Asturias Foundation. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  8. ^ "Joanne Chory". biology.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  9. ^ "Joanne Chory wins the 2020 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize". Rockefeller.edu.
  10. ^ "Bezos Earth Fund donates $30 million to Salk Institute for innovative climate change research". Eurekalert. 2020.