Emily Derbyshire is the Eads Family Professor of Chemistry at Duke University, holding additional appointments as Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology since 2024 and Associate Professor of Cell Biology since 2022. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry with honors from Trinity College in 2002, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008, where her graduate research with Prof. Michael A. Marletta focused on the biochemical study of an enzyme relevant to human health. Derbyshire then served as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Jon Clardy’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School from 2009 to 2014, developing a chemical genetic screen to identify inhibitors of liver-stage malaria parasites.

She joined Duke in 2013 as a Scholar in Residence in the Department of Chemistry, progressing to Assistant Professor of Chemistry from 2014 to 2021 and Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology from 2014 to 2023, then Associate Professor of Chemistry from 2021 to 2024. The Derbyshire Lab integrates chemical biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry to uncover novel aspects of malaria parasite biology, particularly the liver stage, aiming to identify druggable targets through phenotypic and target-based screens, pathway exploration, and small molecule development. Notable publications include "Structure and regulation of soluble guanylate cyclase" (Annual Review of Biochemistry, 2012), "Liver-stage malaria parasites vulnerable to diverse chemical scaffolds" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012), "Diversity-oriented synthesis yields novel multistage antimalarial inhibitors" (Nature, 2016), "The cytoplasmic prolyl-tRNA synthetase of the malaria parasite is a dual-stage target of febrifugine and its analogs" (Science Translational Medicine, 2015), and recent papers such as "Host Sphingolipids Support Plasmodium berghei Liver Stage Development" (mBio, 2025) and "Selective Targeting of Plasmodium falciparum Hsp90 Disrupts the 26S Proteasome" (Cell Chemical Biology, 2024). Her impactful research has earned awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award, AAAS Marion Milligan Mason Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2020), Sloan Research Fellowship (2021), AAAS Fellow (2024), and American Academy of Microbiology Fellow (2026).

Professional Email: emily.derbyshire@duke.edu