Joanne Chory, Salk Institute professor
and pioneering plant biologist, dies at age 69

November 13, 2024

Joanne Chory, Salk Institute professor and pioneering plant biologist, dies at age 69

November 13, 2024

LA JOLLA—Salk Professor Joanne Chory, one of the world’s preeminent plant biologists who led the charge to mitigate climate change with plant-based solutions, died on November 12, 2024, at the age of 69 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2004 and, despite the challenges, continued to lead her research team until the time of her death.

Chory, who was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, spent more than 30 years studying how plants respond to their environments, and she made many important discoveries regarding how plants sense light and make growth hormones.

“Joanne was one of the most influential plant biologists of the modern era and a beloved member of the Salk community. Her leadership, compassion, and joy will be forever missed on our campus and beyond,” says Salk President Gerald Joyce. “It has been a true privilege to know Joanne. Her brilliant work will live on, and just might save the world.”

Chory joined the Salk Institute in 1988 as an assistant professor and one of the first plant biologists at the Institute. Most recently, she was a full professor, directed Salk’s Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, and held the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology.

“Joanne was a trailblazer in the field of plant genetics, and for more than 30 years, she made seminal discoveries about how plants interact with and adapt to the environment. In the past eight years, she used the fruits of these discoveries to reconceptualize the problem of global carbon and advance a solution which is affordable, scalable, and available in a reasonable timeframe,” says Howard Newman, a long-time Salk Trustee. “She will thus leave commanding legacies in both pure and applied science.”

Working with Arabidopsis thaliana, a small mustard plant and favorite laboratory model, Chory pioneered the application of molecular genetics to plant biology. She used emerging tools to reveal how plants alter their size, shape, and form to optimize growth and photosynthesis in various environments.

For example, shortly after arriving at Salk, Chory revealed that an Arabidopsis mutant called DET1 could grow in the dark. It turned out that the DET1 gene was responsible for how plants respond to light. She determined the gene’s sequence and exact location in the genome. Further studies on another DET gene, DET2, ultimately unveiled the entire plant steroid hormone signaling system and the distinct roles of specific hormones.

Taking this work to one of the world’s most pressing challenges, Chory was the founding director of Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative, a bold effort to optimize crop and wetland plants to pull excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to mitigate the effects of climate change. Under Chory’s leadership, the Initiative received a $35 million award from the TED Audacious Project and $30 million from the Bezos Earth Fund. In 2022, the Initiative spun out the company Cquesta Inc., co-founded by Chory to scale up and commercialize carbon-sequestering plants. In 2023, Hess Corporation donated $50 million to support plant research at Salk. The Harnessing Plants Initiative is currently led by Executive Director Wolfgang Busch, Salk professor and holder of the Hess Chair in Plant Science.

“Joanne and I worked very closely together over the past several years,” Busch says. “Her bright mind, her incredible passion, her energy, and her deep insights into science—and what science can be—were one of a kind. It had been such a privilege to work with her, to get to know her as a person, and to have her as a friend. The loss is immeasurable.”

Chory was a member of several elite scientific academies, including the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was one of the most highly cited researchers in the world for her scientific publications, ranking in the top 1 percent. She was recognized with numerous awards, including the L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Award, the Gruber Genetics Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Princess of Asturias Award, the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, the Wolf Prize in Agriculture, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science.

Born on March 19, 1955, in Boston, Massachusetts, Chory was raised with five siblings by Lebanese parents. She attended Oberlin College for her undergraduate degree in biology and completed her PhD in microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1984. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School under the mentorship of Frederick Ausubel.

Chory is survived by her husband, Stephen, and her two children, Katie and Joe. Memorial details are forthcoming.

Click to honor the life and legacy of Salk Professor Joanne Chory by learning more and supporting her vision »

---

Chory’s colleagues shared the following sentiments:

“I’m deeply saddened by the loss of an absolute inspiration, a force of nature, a brilliant mind, and a wonderful person who stayed totally active and engaged, dignified, and humble throughout her hugely impactful life. Grateful I got to spend as much time with her as I did.”
-Kay Tye, Salk Professor

“Joanne was one of the brightest minds of a generation. The research undertaken by her lab remains some of the most groundbreaking, innovative, and novel work to date, and her loss will be keenly felt by so many of those who had the opportunity to engage with her. A brilliant scientist who inspired those around her, who advocated for positive change for women in science, and whose discoveries have brought significant global impact, her legacy will endure.”
-Gene Robinson, Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois, where Chory served on the Science Advisory Board.

"Joanne was not only a treasured friend but also a mentor and supporter—my most important colleague during my career as an independent investigator. I have been missing her advice and her presence every day for the past two decades, since I left Salk and moved to Max Planck. We are all heartbroken."
-Detlef Weigel, Director at Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen

"Joanne's contribution as a supportive and generous mentor to hundreds of students and postdocs, and her role as an inspiration to generations of scientists, is truly immeasurable. She was incredibly deserving of the ASPB-Carnegie Winslow Briggs Mentorship Award, and I’m so glad she was recognized with this honor this past year. As one of her mentees, I couldn’t think of a more fitting recipient for this inaugural award."
-Zhiyong Wang, Acting Director of the Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science

“I had the privilege of being one of Joanne's postdocs, and her influence on my career—and on me as a person—is immeasurable. Joanne was not only a brilliant scientist but also a deeply passionate mentor who encouraged all of us to think bigger and aim higher. She taught me to ask meaningful questions and to pursue answers with rigor, creativity, and fearlessness. More than a mentor, Joanne was also a friend and a motherly figure to me. Her unwavering support, sharp insights, and guidance shaped both my career and the person I am today. She will be deeply missed.”
-Ullas Pedmale, Associate Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, former postdoctoral researcher in Chory's lab.