Joseph R. Ecker is an American plant biologist and

molecular biologist Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

. He is Professor of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and Director of the Genomic Analysis Laboratory at the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among th ...

. He is also an Investigator of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

. He holds the Salk International Council Chair in Genetics. He is also an adjunct professor in the Section of Cell and Developmental Biology at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

Biography

Ecker completed a BA degree in biology in 1978 at

The College of New Jersey The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is a public university in Ewing Township, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Established in 1855 as the New Jersey State Normal School, TCNJ was the first normal school, ...

. He then joined the laboratory of virologist Dr. Richard Hyman and studied herpes viruses at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. He joined Ronald W. Davis's lab at Stanford University. In 1987, he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Plant Science Institute at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award granted to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards for researc ...

in 2017.

Notable honors and awards

2024 ILCHUN Molecular Medicine Award of the Korean Society for ''Molecular'' and Cellular ''Biology'' 2024 Philip N. Benfey Arabidopsis Community Lifetime Achievement (PACLA) Award 2014-2023 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher: Molecular Biology and Genetics 2014-2019, 2021 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher: Plant and Animal Science 2017 John M. Chemerda Lectures at The Pennsylvania State University 2015 Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2015 Top 10 Health Innovations of 2015, Popular Science Magazine 2012 Elected American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow 2011 Investigator - Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Gordon and Betty Moore Fdn 2011 Discover Magazine Top 100 Science Stories 2011 George W. Beadle Award, Genetics Society of America 2009 #2 Scientific Discovery of the Year -TIME Magazine 2009 SF Yang Memorial Lecture/Award, SF Yang Memorial Foundation, Taiwan 2007 John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences 2006 Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences 2006 The Woolhouse Lecture, John Innes Centre, Norwich United Kingdom 2005 Martin Gibbs Medal, American Society for Plant Biology 2004 ''Scientific American'' 50: Research Leader of the Year in Agriculture 2004 Distinguished Research Award International Plant Growth Substances Association 2001 Co- Recipient Kumho Science International Award, Kumho Foundation, Korea 1983-1986 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Plant Biology 1978-1982 National Research Service Award Predoctoral Training Fellowship, NIH 1978 Student Originated Studies Award, National Science Foundation

External links

List of publications and citations
at

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ecker, Joseph Living people 21st-century American biologists Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Year of birth missing (living people) Salk Institute for Biological Studies people