Josh Elias, Ph.D.

Josh Elias received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in cell biology with Stephen Gygi. During his thesis research, Elias developed the now ubiquitous “target-decoy” search strategy for controlling proteomic experimental error. This effort established his long-standing interest in improving proteomics workflows, bringing them in sync with the robust methods used in genomics and allied fields. As a faculty member at Stanford University, Elias focused on solving three extraordinary challenges in proteomics: identifying disease-relevant antigens presented on MHC complexes; characterizing the biologically relevant proteins that mediate host-microbiome interaction, and improving methods for searching the vast sequence space these experiments encompass. At CZ Biohub SF, Elias leads the Mass Spectrometry platform; he and his team are expanding these efforts by making a deliberate effort to integrate multi-omic strategies  — minimally proteomics and metabolomics — whenever possible. The technologies they are developing are broadly applicable, including methods to quantify dynamic post-translational regulation mechanisms that have so far been hidden in the “dark matter” of biology — molecules invisible to genomic technologies and standard proteomic assays.