Joanne Chory elected to the American Philosophical Society

May 8, 2015

Joanne Chory elected to the American Philosophical Society

May 8, 2015

Salk scientist Joanne Chory, a professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, has received the prestigious honor of being elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS). The APS is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, which promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities. This country’s first learned society, the APS has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life for over 250 years.

Chory joins a distinguished group of former members of APS, which includes Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison. Past and present Salk faculty members elected to APS include Renato Dulbecco, Sydney Brenner, Francis Crick, Ronald Evans, Fred Gage, Inder Verma and Tony Hunter.

Chory, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology, came to the Salk Institute in 1988.

For more than 25 years, Chory has used Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering mustard plant, as a model for plant growth. She has pioneered the use of molecular genetics to study how plants respond to their environment and has made major discoveries surrounding how plants sense light and make growth hormones.

Chory and her team run a vertically integrated program, using genetics, genomics, cell biology, x-ray crystallography, biochemistry and ecological approaches. This has allowed them to determine one of the most complex signaling networks that control growth and development in response to environmental change.

Chory also is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences, and is a foreign member of the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences. Other honors include the Award for Initiatives in Research from the National Academy of Sciences, the L’Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science and the Kumho Award in Plant Molecular Biology.

About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is one of the world’s preeminent basic research institutions, where internationally renowned faculty probes fundamental life science questions in a unique, collaborative and creative environment. Focused both on discovery and on mentoring future generations of researchers, Salk scientists make groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of cancer, aging, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and infectious diseases by studying neuroscience, genetics, cell and plant biology and related disciplines.

Faculty achievements have been recognized with numerous honors, including Nobel Prizes and memberships in the National Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1960 by polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk, MD, the Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark.