Raymond Joseph Deshaies (born September 25, 1961) is an American biochemist and cell biologist. He is senior vice president of global research at Amgen and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Prior to that, he was a professor of biology at Caltech and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also the co-founder of the biotechnology companies Proteolix and Cleave Biosciences. His research focuses on mechanisms and regulation of protein homeostasis in eukaryotic cells, with a particular focus on how proteins are conjugated with ubiquitin and degraded by the proteasome. Biography Deshaies was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on September 25, 1961. He graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in biochemistry in 1983. He received his biochemistry doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988. He performed postdoctoral studies at Berkeley (1988–1990) and subsequently at the University of California, San Francisco (1990–1994). He started as an assistant professor at Caltech in 1994 and was promoted to associate professor in 2000 and professor in 2005. In 2000, he was appointed as an assistant investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and held the title of investigator from 2004–2017. He co-founded the biotechnology companies Proteolix and Cleave Biosciences in 2003 and 2011, respectively. He also founded the Proteome Exploration Laboratory at Caltech in 2006. Scientific contributions Protein translocation: As a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley, Deshaies discovered Sec61, which comprises the heart of the translocon that mediates insertion of secretory and membrane proteins into the endoplasmic reticulum of all eukaryotic cells. He went on to identify a complex of proteins that form the translocon in yeast cells. In addition, Deshaies discovered a role for 70 kilodalton heat shock proteins (Hsp70s) in enabling the post-translational insertion of proteins into the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondrial membranes. This was the first specific, genetically- and biochemically-validated function to be discovered for a member of the Hsp70 family of proteins. SCF and cullin–RING ubiquitin ligases: As a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Marc Kirschner at the University of California, San Francisco, Deshaies discovered a biochemical function for the ubiquitin-conjugated enzyme CDC34, which he showed mediates conjugation of ubiquitin onto G1 cyclin proteins in yeast cells. Upon starting his laboratory at Caltech, Deshaies studied the function of Cdc34 and how it relates to progression through the cell division cycle.