Ray joined Amgen in 2017 after a 23-year career in academia at Caltech and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Ray's lab has worked on a number of topics including regulation of cell cycle progression and mechanisms and regulation of the ubiquitin-proteasome system. His major contributions to the ubiquitin field include the conceptualization of targeted protein degradation (PROTACs), discovery of new components and substrates of the proteasome and the p97/VCP pathway, and the discovery of cullin–RING ubiquitin ligases (CRLs) and their key modes of regulation.  Ray has trained over forty students and postdocs including scientists at Amgen, Genentech, Pfizer, and AbbVie and faculty members at UCLA, Stanford, University of British Columbia, Seoul National University, Purdue, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Nevada, and Virginia Commonwealth University. While at Caltech Ray co-founded Proteolix in 2003, where Kyprolis® carfilzomib was discovered and developed, and Cleave Therapeutics in 2011. Ray was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2016.

Featured Publications

Chou, T.F., Brown, S.J., Minond, D., Nordin, B.E., Li, K., Jones, A.C., Chase, P., Porubsky, P.R., Stoltz, B.M., Schoenen, F.J., Patricelli, M.P., Hodder, P., Rosen, H., and Deshaies, R.J. (2011) Reversible inhibitor of p97, DBeQ, impairs both ubiquitin-dependent and autophagic protein clearance pathways. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA .https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/108/12/4834.full.pdf

Li, J., Yakushi, T., Parlati, F., Mackinnon, A.L., Perez, C., Ma, Y., Carter, K.P., Colayco, S., Magnuson, G., Brown, B., Nguyen, K., Vasile, S., Suyama, E., Smith, L.H., Sergienko, E., Pinkerton, A.B., Chung, T.D., Palmer, A.E., Pass, I., Hess, S., Cohen, S.M., and Deshaies RJ.  (2017).  Capzimin is a potent and specific inhibitor of proteasome isopeptidase Rpn11.  Nat. Chem. Biol. 5, 486-493. https://www.nature.com/articles/nchembio.2326

Reitsma JM, Liu X, Reichermeier KM, Moradian A, Sweredoski MJ, Hess S, Deshaies RJ.  (2017). Composition and Regulation of the Cellular Repertoire of SCF Ubiquitin Ligases.  Cell. 171(6):1326-1339. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867417312382

Verma R, Reichermeier KM, Burroughs AM, Oania RS, Reitsma JM, Aravind L, Deshaies RJ.  (2018).  Vms1 and ANKZF1 peptidyl-tRNA hydrolases release nascent chains from stalled ribosomes.  Nature. 557(7705): 446-51. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0022-5

Reichermeier KM, Straube R, Reitsma JM, Sweredoski MJ, Rose CM, Moradian A, den Besten W, Hinkle T, Verschueren E, Petzold G, Thomä NH, Wertz IE, Deshaies RJ, Kirkpatrick DS.  (2020).  PIKES Analysis Reveals Response to Degraders and Key Regulatory Mechanisms of the CRL4 Network. Mol Cell. pii: S1097-2765(19)30926-8.  Epub ahead of print. https://authors.library.caltech.edu/100825/2/1-s2.0-S1097276519309268-mmc1.pdf

Education

Ph.D., Biochemistry, University of California- Berkeley
B.S., Biochemistry, Cornell University