Gerald Joyce

Gerald Joyce is Professor and Chief Scientific Officer at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Prior to moving his laboratory to Salk in 2017, he was a Professor at Scripps Research. From 2014 to 2021 he served as Institute Director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), during which time 15 compounds were brought into human clinical trials and 3 FDA approvals were received for compounds that originated at GNF.

In his academic research, Dr. Joyce pioneered the directed evolution of nucleic acids, including the first example of the directed evolution of an RNA enzyme, the discovery of the first DNA enzyme, and the development of the first self-replicating RNA enzyme.

He received a BA from the University of Chicago in 1978 and both an MD and PhD from UCSD in 1984, then carried out postgraduate medical and research training before joining the faculty of Scripps Research in 1989.

Dr. Joyce is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He received the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award for Early Earth and Life Sciences.