Dr. Joanne Chory is Changing the World—One Seed at a Time

Hidden Voices began as a collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York that was initiated to help City students learn about the countless individuals who are often “hidden” from traditional historical records. Each of the people highlighted in this series has made a positive impact on their communities while serving as outstanding examples of leadership, advocacy, and community service.

Today, in celebration of Arab American Heritage Month and Earth Day, we’re sharing the story of Dr. Joanne Chory, a Lebanese American plant geneticist whose early work revolutionized botany and who dedicated her life to the global fight against climate change.

What if plants could save the world?

Dr. Joanne Chory, a plant geneticist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, believed that maybe they could.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1955 to Lebanese immigrant parents, Dr. Chory described herself as a "late bloomer in science," who didn't even know what she wanted to study until taking a genetics course as an undergraduate at Oberlin College that changed the course of her life.

It was in the 1980s, as a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, when Chory first asked the question that would change the trajectory of her career: what if plants could grow and be healthy, all without any light? To find an answer to what might seem like an impossible question, she decided to conduct an experiment.

Dr. Chory planted thale cress seeds—a plant that very few scientists were studying at the time—into Petri dishes that were placed in an incubator and covered with foil to create dark conditions. However, these weren’t ordinary seeds: they had been soaked in a chemical that would damage their DNA in order to create mutations that might allow them to grow in the dark.

A week later, she found that most of the seedlings looked like you would expect any plant deprived of light would: they were etiolated, which meant that they were weak, withered, and didn’t have any leaves. But, she noticed something surprising about a few of the plants. These plants had white leaves—since they were unable to produce chlorophyll in the dark—but besides their unusual color, these rogue seedlings otherwise looked just like a plant that had been growing out in the sun. She called these mutant plants "det1," which stood for "de-etiolated."

Chory and her team set out to determine how this unexpected growth was possible by studying the plant's genetics. They eventually discovered a mutated gene that allowed a plant to develop properly, even when kept in complete darkness. Chory later went on to determine the gene's sequence and exact location in the genome. This was a revolutionary finding, and one that was first met with a lot of doubt and skepticism. Chory did not let the doubters stop her; she continued this research and was eventually proven right.

In fact, Chory overcame the reservations many scientists first had about her work, becoming a widely respected scientist. She received many top awards and honors throughout her career—including being elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and receiving the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

By the time Chory joined the Salk Institute in 1988, she had expanded her studies on thale cress plants to explore another genetic mutation ("det2") in plant hormones called brassinosteroids—the steroid hormones of plants. In fact, Chory had identified the first steroid receptors outside of animals, helping to uncover the specific roles of certain hormones and how they aid in plant development.

One of Chory’s collaborators, biologist Detlef Weigel, explained the significance of her findings on brassinosteroids: “If this discovery had been made not in the plant system, but in the animal system, it certainly would have been honored with a Nobel Peace prize.” Another geneticist said that “Joanne is probably the most influential plant biologist of the modern era.”

Dr. Chory believed that these discoveries had major implications in the fight against climate change. She led a team at the Salk Institute that hoped to use everything they’d learned to create stress- and pathogen-resistant perennial plants that would help capture 20–50% more excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, while also sustainably feeding the predicted 10 billion people who will inhabit the Earth by 2056.

Chory championed this work as the leader of the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative, which aims to fight climate change by “optimizing a plant’s natural ability to capture and store carbon and adapt to diverse climate conditions.” In other words, they are working to create an “Ideal Plant,” that they hope will both capture more CO2, and hold onto it for longer.

Their plan is to genetically modify plant roots to be bigger, deeper, and contain more suberpin—a substance that can capture carbon and which is resistant to decomposition. This would keep CO2 in the soil for much longer than is currently possible with normal plants. If these Ideal Plants are grown on a large scale, the team believes the plants could suck enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to help slow down climate change.

In 2004, Dr. Chory was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and though for many years she continued to work in her laboratory and did not let this stop her from conducting her important research, she unfortunately passed away due to complications from the illness in November 2024. Nevertheless, the team at the Salk Institute continues the work that Chory pioneered, carrying on her legacy as they work to make her vision of "ideal plants" a reality.

There is still a long road ahead of them before they reach a point when these superplants are widespread: even once the plants are successfully created, the scientists will have to convince hesitant farmers to plant them and persuade government regulators across the globe that the genetically-modified seeds are safe to use. But despite the challenges she knew the team would eventually face, Dr. Chory remained hopeful: “We’re going to make plants better,” she said of her work in 2021, “and we’re going to end up saving the world.”

Cover Photo: Photo of Dr. Joanne Chory in her laboratory. Photo by Chris Keeney/Salk Institute. Original can be found online.