Joanne Chory

Joanne Chory
Born	(1955-03-19) 19 March 1955 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	12 November 2024(2024-11-12) (aged 69) La Jolla, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Plant biologist, geneticist
Years active	1988–2024
Known for	Plant molecular and cellular biology; Harnessing Plants Initiative; carbon dioxide removal research

Joanne Chory (March 19, 1955 – November 12, 2024) was a distinguished American plant biologist and geneticist. She held the position of professor and directed the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in addition to being an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Chory established the Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) at the Salk Institute, a carbon dioxide removal approach aimed at combating climate change by leveraging plants’ inherent ability to capture and store carbon. The initiative concentrates on engineering plants with more extensive and robust root systems that sequester carbon underground as suberin, a naturally occurring substance. HPI received $35 million in funding from the TED Audacious Project in 2019 and an additional $30 million from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020.

After joining the Salk Institute in 1988, Chory became a pioneer in molecular genetics research focused on how plants modify their shape and size to maximize photosynthesis and growth across different environments. She held the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology and served as an adjunct professor in Cell and Developmental Biology at UC San Diego.

In 2011, she was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society. Her distinguished career was recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2019 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Background

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1955 to Lebanese immigrant parents, Chory grew up alongside four brothers and one sister. She graduated with honors in biology from Oberlin College and earned her PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the mentorship of Samuel Kaplan. Following her doctoral studies, she conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School within Frederick M. Ausubel’s laboratory before beginning her tenure as an assistant professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1988. She married Stephen Worland, with whom she adopted two children.

Chory was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2004 and managed the illness for over ten years while maintaining her research activities through medication and a brain implant device. Additionally, she was a committed advocate for women in science, actively working to enhance opportunities for emerging female researchers.

Her early academic focus was microbiology; however, her interests shifted toward genetics, especially employing the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Her innovative contributions to plant biology garnered widespread recognition throughout her career. She died due to complications related to Parkinson’s disease in La Jolla, California, on November 12, 2024, at age 69.

Career and research

Chory’s scientific endeavors centered on improving plant growth efficiency to meet the demands of an expanding global population, utilizing Arabidopsis thaliana as a primary experimental model. By inducing mutations and examining their genetic consequences through techniques spanning genetics, genomics, cell biology, x-ray crystallography, biochemistry, and ecology, she significantly advanced knowledge about plant light perception and hormone regulation. These insights have informed methods to boost growth performance across diverse crop species.

Her expertise lay in altering phenotypes connected to light-regulated developmental processes. Her laboratory identified mutants lacking functional phytochrome photoreceptors and nuclear repressors while demonstrating that steroid hormones play a key role in controlling seedling growth. Through manipulation of steroid biosynthetic pathways, Chory’s team was able to modify plant development patterns and discovered a transmembrane receptor kinase functioning as a potential steroid receptor.

Furthermore, her research group made important contributions to elucidating chloroplast-to-nucleus retrograde signaling mechanisms as well as plant shade avoidance responses, revealing novel signaling pathways that regulate plant growth under fluctuating light environments.

Awards and distinctions

• Recipient of the 2024 Wolf Prize in Agriculture
• Awarded the 2024 Benjamin Franklin Medal
• Honored with the 2020 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize
• Winner of the 2019 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research
• Laureate of the 2018 Gruber Prize in Genetics
• Earned the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
• Inducted into the American Philosophical Society in 2015
• Awarded the 2012 Genetics Society of America Medal
• Became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2011
• Designated Foreign Associate of the Académie des Sciences, France, in 2009
• Joined the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina as a member in 2008
• Named Associate Member of the EMBO in 2006
• Recognized as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005
• Received the Kumho Award in Plant Molecular Biology in 2004
• Listed among Scientific American’s 50 Research Leaders in Agriculture in 2003
• Honored with the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science in 2000
• Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1999
• Became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998
• Appointed Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1997
• Awarded the Charles Albert Schull Award by the American Society of Plant Biologists in 1995
• Received the NAS Award for Initiatives in Research in 1994

External links

• Biography and research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• Faculty webpage at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
• TED Talk 2019. Joanne Chory: How supercharged plants could slow climate change