Edward G. Ruby

For over 35 years Dr. Ruby has worked with host-microbe interactions to understand the beneficial impact of bacterial signals and metabolic products on host tissues. To advance this goal in an experimental model system, Dr. Ruby’s lab developed molecular genetics in the light-organ symbiont Vibrio fischeri and determined the first whole genome sequences for this bacterium. These tools provided a window into the sequential progression of changes in bacterial gene expression that help drive symbiosis development. Dr. Ruby was hired into the Symbiosis Cluster at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004, where he held the Steenbock Chair of Microbiological Sciences, and was Vice- and Acting Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology. He has been an EU/Marie Curie ITN Researcher at the Max Planck Institute, Bremen, on the Board of Governors for American Academy of Microbiology, a Visiting Professor at HuaZhong U, China, and a Moore Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Caltech. He is currently on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology. In 2022, he moved his lab to Caltech, where he is a Faculty Associate, and a visiting scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.