Gerald Joyce elected to American Philosophical Society

Salk News

Gerald Joyce elected to American Philosophical Society

Salk president joins the nation's oldest learned society

LA JOLLA-Salk Institute President Gerald Joyce, MD, PhD, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society. Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the American Philosophical Society is the oldest learned society in the United States. Through elected membership and a wide range of scholarly and public programs, the Society advances useful knowledge and the free exchange of ideas across disciplines.

"Jerry has spent his career pursuing foundational questions about how life begins and how molecules evolve, and those discoveries continue to shape the future of biology and medicine," says Marna C. Whittington, PhD, chair of Salk's Board of Trustees and member of the American Philosophical Society Council. "This election is a recognition of his scientific leadership, intellectual breadth, and lasting impact."

Joyce pioneered directed evolution, a technology for evolving molecules in the test tube so they can take on new functions. His research has helped illuminate how some of the earliest biomolecules may have arisen and how RNA could assemble, replicate, and evolve. He also designed the first DNA enzymes, some of which are now being tested in human clinical trials for cancer, asthma, and skin diseases.

Before joining Salk's faculty, Joyce served as director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation and earlier as dean of the faculty at Scripps Research. He began his scientific career at Salk as a PhD student and postdoctoral scholar, returned as a faculty member in 2017, and served as senior vice president and chief science officer before becoming president in 2023.

Among his many honors, Joyce has received the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology, the Göttingen Academy of Science's Dannie Heineman Prize, and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Early Earth and Life Sciences. He is also a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Joyce joins a distinguished group of past and present Salk faculty members elected to the American Philosophical Society, among them Elizabeth Blackburn, Sydney Brenner, Joanne Chory, Francis Crick, Renato Dulbecco, Ronald Evans, Rusty Gage, Tony Hunter, and Terrence Sejnowski, as well as Salk Board Chair Emeritus Irwin Jacobs and current Board Chair Marna Whittington.