Dr. Morimoto is the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology, Professor of Molecular Biosciences, and Director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research at Northwestern University. He holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Ph.D. in Biology from The University of Chicago, and did postdoctoral research at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.  His research has been on the heat shock response, the function of molecular chaperones, and the role of proteostasis to maintain the stability of the proteome in health and in the face of stress, aging and diseases of protein conformation.  Morimoto has published over 200 papers and edited four books including Heat Shock Proteins and Molecular Chaperones, and Protein Homeostasis in Health and Disease.  He has received many academic honors, awards, and support from NIGMS, NINDS, NIA, HDSA, CHDI, ALSA, and generous foundations. Morimoto has served numerous academic and educational leadership positions at Northwestern, with the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, and at the national and international level on various NIH Institute Advisory Councils, review panels, and scientific advisory boards.  He is a co-founder of Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. a biotech in Cambridge, MA to establish a systems level understanding and small molecule therapeutic strategy for diverse diseases of protein conformation.