Joseph DeRisi Battles Malaria with Innovation and Openness | Voice of America - English
Welcome to American Profiles, VOA's weekly spotlight on notable Americans who've made a difference in how we think, live, and act. Today: a researcher who has contributed to the battle against diseases including malaria and SARS, and who is a passionate advocate for openness in science.
For aguy who spends most of his time in a ? the University of California, San Francisco ? Joe DeRisi hasa pretty high profile. A fewyears ago,  magazine described him as a "rock star amongmolecular biologists," featuring him as one of their "best andbrightest" honorees. Thatwas after he had won a . Often calledthe "genius award." It's given to people who show "extraordinaryoriginality" in their work, no matter what field. Andearlier this month he was named winner of another high-profile honor. The HeinzFamily Foundation selected him for their annual . The quarter-million dollar prize was not only forhis "pioneering advancements in the laboratory," but also for whatthey called the "altruistic and caring nature with which he carries on hiswork." In atelephone interview, DeRisi said science was an early passion of his, startingwith school biology lab as a young teenager. "Ithink my formative experiences were really in junior high [school], where at atypical public school we were doing little genetic experiments, very classicexperiments," he recalled. "Andthose experiments in genetics really fascinated me, and I began to think aboutDNA and genetic inheritance and how it could be manipulated. And that was justreally, really interesting to me. And so I always had my eye set on becoming abiochemist or genetic engineer of some sort." Morerecently, he's been targeting malaria, a disease that kills an estimated onemillion people a year, most of them children. "WhenI came to to work on infectious disease, I looked around to different options, andmalaria was particularly interesting and fascinating to me. It's amazing thatafter 100 years of study of this little parasite, we've not been able toeffectively control it. "SoI thought that I could bring new technology and new approaches to the study ofthis parasite in a way that might be able to help us, either create a newtherapeutic or prevention strategy." Malariaisn't his only interest. In 2003, when the virus that causes the respiratory diseaseSARS was identified, it was thanks to a DeRisi innovation known as theViroChip. "Surveyingthe way viruses have been discovered in the past, I came to the conclusion thatI could use my technology that I developed as a graduate student ? DNA microarraytechnology ? to create a chip that would simultaneously screen for all virusesever discovered, and furthermore have the built-in capability of discoveringnew viruses. "Weactually built this chip. And with this chip we can take essentially any humansample, [and] figure out what viruses are in there." TheViroChip, which is something like a glass microscope slide, has 22,000 bits ofDNA from known viruses, and can aid in quickly recognizing known viruses or, asin the case of SARS, help identify new ones. Patentingthe ViroChip might have made DeRisi a lot of money, but instead it's in thepublic domain. Likewise, he's published papers in open-access journals, whereyou can read them for free on the Internet. JonathanEisen, editor in chief of one of those journals, , saidDeRisi is particularly open about his work. "Whatsets Joe DeRisi apart is not just his ability to do really cool science andreally good work, but his passion about making sure those discoveries and toolsare available quickly and broadly to the entire world," Eisen explained. "Andif you want to accelerate the pace of, say, development of new anti-malarialdrugs, which Joe DeRisi is interested in, the best way to do that is to makesure that all the great scientists around the world have access to the latesttechniques and to the latest knowledge about malaria in order to do theirwork." JoeDeRisi says his work keeps him busy, but the young scientist ? he's 38 ? doeshave outside interests, too. "IfI actually had spare time, which right now I don't, you know, the things Ienjoy are mountain biking up in the hills, and hiking, and so on. But thesedays I rarely do those things. I'm really focused on my research almost 100percent. That and my family and kids." In addition to malaria, Joseph DeRisi is working on otherchallenges, ranging from a stubborn virus that kills birds to a possible link between a virus and prostate cancer.