Charles DeLisi

Charles Peter DeLisi (born December 9, 1941) is an American biomedical scientist and the Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering at Boston University. He has made pioneering contributions to mathematical and computational immunology, cell biophysics, genomics, and protein and nucleic acid structure and function. DeLisi has been recognized for seminal contributions to the initiation of the human Genome project.[11][12] He is widely regarded as a transformative academic leader.[13]

Charles DeLisi
Born (1941-12-09) December 9, 1941
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCity College of New York (BA)
New York University (PhD)
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsBiomedicine
Institutions
ThesisThermally Induced Transitions in Collagen (1970)
Doctoral advisorMorris Shamos[5]
Doctoral students
Influences
Influenced
Websitewww.bu.edu/eng/profile/charles-delisi-ph-d/

Early life and education

DeLisi was born in the Bronx, graduated from City College of New York (CCNY) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history (1963), and received his Ph.D. in physics (1965 -1969) from New York University (NYU).[14]

Career and research

In 1969 following his Ph.D. he joined Donald Crothers’ Lab as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral research fellow in the department of chemistry at Yale University, where he remained until 1972. In 1971 he was also a senior lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Applied Science, where he taught digital electronics. In 1972, DeLisi was appointed a theoretical division staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There he began his collaboration with George Bell, a theoretical physicist who a few years earlier had begun seminal research in mathematical immunology. DeLisi was subsequently appointed senior scientist (1975–1982) at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, and founding head of the Section on Theoretical Immunology (1982–1985).

DeLisi was an early champion of the controversial idea that in cell biology, just as in the physical sciences, the mathematical formulation of concepts could predict phenomena that would not otherwise be apparent, and could thereby drive experimental research in new directions. The approach is seen in a number of investigations. His 1979 paper[15] predicted, several years in advance of experimental demonstration, that the signal generated when a nerve growth factor binds its plasma membrane receptor is transduced by receptor dimerization.

In immunology, DeLisi was a strong proponent of the controversial hypothesis that the response of T cells to antigenic stimulation involves the formation of a ternary complex. Predictions based on the mathematical formulation of that idea, the amphipathic hypothesis,[16][17] provided strong support for what was ultimately demonstrated conclusively by X-ray crystallography. The mathematical methods, developed initially with Jay Berzofsky, were subsequently extended and modified by many others, presaging the now widely used bioinformatic approaches to guide the design of peptide vaccines.[18]

At the same time, the Section on Theoretical Immunology (STI), which DeLisi founded several years earlier at the NIH, had introduced the use of supervised learning algorithms for the identification of functional regions in DNA[19] and proteins.[20] The first database integrating DNA and protein sequences with analytical tools[9] was developed in collaboration with Minoru Kanehisa, who was then a visiting fellow at STI.

In 1986, as director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Health and Environmental Research Programs, DeLisi and his advisors proposed, planned and defended before the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Congress, the Human Genome Project. The proposal created a storm of controversy but received strong support from Alvin Trivelpiece, who was head of DOE's Office of Science, and William Flynn Martin, the Deputy Secretary of Energy. It was included in President Ronald Reagan's FY 1987 budget submission to the Congress and subsequently passed both the House and the Senate, the latter with the essential support of Senator Pete Domenici (R, NM). In the spring of 1987, shortly before leaving the DOE, DeLisi established an ethical studies component of the Project.[21] The goal was to set aside 3-5% of the funding in order to engage the best minds in the humanities and social sciences to develop a body of thought that would inform decisions about the development and deployment of the radically new technologies destined to emerge from the completion of the Project. In taking this step DeLisi was likely influenced by the fact that he was working for an agency that provided the vast majority of the nation's nuclear physics budget, and the awareness that the consequences of the rapid development of nuclear energy some four decades earlier continued to plague the planet.

In addition to the medical and scientific advances engendered by the Human Genome Project, it and its progeny have had a profound effect on the sociology and culture of cell biology. The computer science community, in particular, moved with extraordinary dexterity into cell biology, transforming the field and creating a record of discovery destined to provide material for a remarkable story in the sociology of late 20th and early 21st Century science. Computational and mathematical methods are now widely viewed as central to progress in cell biology, a change that is forcing even the most conservative universities to respond to a new paradigm in biological education.[22] The Human Genome Project enabled a rapid and smooth transformation of all aspects of DOE's health and environmental and energy programs, propelling the Office of Health and Environmental Research to a position of international importance.

Commemorating the significance of the Human Genome Project, the DOE installed a bronze plaque outside room F-202 at its Germantown, Maryland facility. The plaque reads[12]

From this room the Human Genome Project evolved from a mere concept to a revolutionary research program through the vision and determination of Dr. Charles DeLisi, Associate Director of Energy Research for Health and Environmental Research, 1985 to 1987.

In 1987, DeLisi returned to New York as a professor and department chair at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.[23]

Boston University years

In 1990 DeLisi joined Boston University (BU) as dean of the College of Engineering.[24] Under his watch the College grew into a leading research institution, adding among other things Centers for Biotechnology, Photonics and Manufacturing Engineering.[25] In addition, the Biomedical Engineering (BME) department added a new dimension to the field, namely molecular and cellular engineering, and was the home of the seminal research in synthetic biology.[26]

In 1999 DeLisi initiated the Nation's first Ph.D. program in bioinformatics and served as Chair for more than a decade.[27]

In 2000, after 10 years as dean, DeLisi returned to a full-time faculty position as dean emeritus and Metcalf Professor. The lobby of the building that houses the College of Engineering Dean's Office is named in his honor,[28] as is an annual College of Engineering award lecture.[29] During his tenure as dean, he and the college had the good fortune of a particularly supportive central administration, led by John Silber, Jon Westling, and Dennis Berkey.

Awards and honors

DeLisi is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). In 1999 he was awarded the CCNY Townsend Harris Medal, the highest honor that can be bestowed on an alumnus. In 2011 he was elected an honorary citizen of Marineo, Palermo, Italy.[30]

Personal life

DeLisi's father died when he was four. He was raised Roman Catholic by his maternal grandparents, who were Italian immigrants. He has two children—Jacqueline and Daniel— by his former wife Lynn DeLisi (m. August 1968, d. May 2006), and four grandchildren: Samuel Cheever, Ken DeLisi, Sadye Cheever, and Aili DeLisi. He has been living with his childhood friend, Noreen Vasady-Kovacs, since September, 2011.[31]

References
  1. DeLisi, Charles (2008). "Santa Fe 1986: Human genome baby-steps". Nature. 455 (7215): 876–877. doi:10.1038/455876a. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 18923499. S2CID 41637733.
  2. DeLisi, C.: Physical-Chemical and Biological Implications of Receptor Clustering. In DeLisi, C., and Blumenthal, R. (Ed.): Physical Chemical Aspects of Cell Surface Events in Cellular Regulation. New York, Elsevier, North Holland, 1979.
  3. Human Genome News (Genomics.energy.gov) Vol.11, No. 3-4, July 2001.
  4. Bevatron’s Encyclopedia of Inventions: a compendium of technological leaps, ground break discoveries and scientific breakthroughs that changed the world. The Human Genome Project, Charles DeLisi, pp 360-362.
  5. "Physics Tree - Morris Herbert Shamos". academictree.org.
  6. Weng, Zhiping (1997). Protein-ligand binding: Effective free energy calculations (PhD thesis). Boston University. OCLC 38760266. ProQuest 304338123.
  7. Yanai, I., Derti, A., and DeLisi, C. Genes linked by fusion events are generally of the same functional category: A systematic analysis of 30 microbial genomes. PNAS, v 98, 7940-7945, 2001
  8. https://academictree.org/chemistry/peopleinfo.php?pid=738327
  9. Kanethisa, Minoru; Klein, Petr; Greif, Peter; DeLisi, Charles (1984). "Computer analysis and structure prediction of nucleic acid and proteins". Nucleic Acids Research. 12 (1Part1): 417–428. doi:10.1093/nar/12.1Part1.417. ISSN 0305-1048. PMC 321015. PMID 6546426.
  10. Cornette, James L.; Cease, Kemp B.; Margalit, Hanah; Spouge, John L.; Berzofsky, Jay A.; DeLisi, Charles (1987). "Hydrophobicity scales and computational techniques for detecting amphipathic structures in proteins". Journal of Molecular Biology. 195 (3): 659–685. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(87)90189-6. ISSN 0022-2836. PMID 3656427.
  11. "President Clinton Awards the Presidential Citizens Medals". clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  12. CharlesDeLisi (2002-03-01), English: A tribute to the person who launched the Human Genome Project, retrieved 2020-08-30
  13. "Charles DeLisi, Ph.D. | College of Engineering". www.bu.edu.
  14. Charles DeLisi at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  15. DeLisi, C.: Physical-Chemical and Biological Implications of Receptor Clustering. In DeLisi, C., and Blumenthal, R. (Ed.): Physical Chemical Aspects of Cell Surface Events in Cellular Regulation. New York, Elsevier, North Holland, 1979.
  16. DeLisi, C.; Berzofsky, J. A. (1985). "T-cell antigenic sites tend to be amphipathic structures". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 82 (20): 7048–7052. Bibcode:1985PNAS...82.7048D. doi:10.1073/pnas.82.20.7048. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 391307. PMID 2413457.
  17. Cornette, J. L.; Margalit, H.; Berzofsky, J. A.; DeLisi, C. (1995). "Periodic variation in side-chain polarities of T-cell antigenic peptides correlates with their structure and activity". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 92 (18): 8368–8372. Bibcode:1995PNAS...92.8368C. doi:10.1073/pnas.92.18.8368. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 41158. PMID 7667297.
  18. W. Martin, A. Bosma, H. Sbai and A.S. De Groot. The use of bioinformatics for identifying class I restricted T cell epitopes. Methods (Epitope Mapping Issue). Bill Kwok, editor, Methods 29 (2003) 289–298.
  19. Nakata, Kotoko; Kanehisa, Minoru; DeLisi, Charles (1985). "Predictlon of splice junctions in mRNA sequences". Nucleic Acids Research. 13 (14): 5327–5340. doi:10.1093/nar/13.14.5327. ISSN 0305-1048. PMC 321868. PMID 4022782.
  20. Klein, Petr; Kanehisa, Minoru; DeLisi, Charles (1985). "The detection and classification of membrane-spanning proteins". Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Biomembranes. 815 (3): 468–476. doi:10.1016/0005-2736(85)90375-X. ISSN 0005-2736. PMID 3838905.
  21. Robert Cooke-Deegan, Gene Wars, p 262, W. H. Norton, New York, 1994.
  22. C DeLisi, A Time to Abandon Hedgehogs, Genome Technology, 2001.
  23. DeLisi, Charles (1988). "The Human Genome Project: The ambitious proposal to map and decipher the complete sequence of human DNA". American Scientist. 76 (5): 488–493. ISSN 0003-0996. JSTOR 27855388.
  24. "BU Theta tau brochure" (PDF). www.thetatauarchives.org. Retrieved 2020-07-25.
  25. "Research Brochures | College of Engineering". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  26. Gardner, Timothy S.; Cantor, Charles R.; Collins, James J. (January 2000). "Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli". Nature. 403 (6767): 339–342. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..339G. doi:10.1038/35002131. PMID 10659857. S2CID 345059.
  27. "Boston University's Legacy in Computational, Systems and Synthetic Biology » Computational Genomics Lab | Boston University". sites.bu.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  28. http://www.thetatauarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2016-psi-delta-bu.pdf%5B%5D
  29. "Charles DeLisi Award and Lecture | College of Engineering". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  30. "Deliberation documents" (PDF). win.comune.marineo.pa.it. 2011. Retrieved 2020-07-25.
  31. DeLisi, Charles; Vasady-Kovacs, Noreen. "A New York Story". Retrieved 2019-01-14.
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