Profile of Raymond J. Deshaies.

Protein homeostasis is crucial to the health of living cells, and dysregulated protein homeostasis can trigger diseases, including cancer. Biochemical cell biologist Raymond Deshaies has devoted his distinguished career to the analysis of protein homeostasis and the development of therapeutic approaches to counter diseases that result when homeostasis goes awry. Deshaies has served as a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Over the years, in addition to devoting his attention to cancer research, he has launched two companies focused on developing cancer-fighting drugs. Recently, he accepted a leadership position at the pharmaceutical company Amgen, Inc. In 2016, Deshaies was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. However, despite his scientific accomplishments and accolades, Deshaies says science is something he “grew into.”