In 1969, he joined
Donald Crothers’ laboratory as a
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
postdoctoral research fellow in the department of chemistry at
Yale University. In 1972, he was appointed a theoretical division staff scientist at
Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he collaborated with
George Bell, a theoretical physicist who a few years earlier had begun pioneering 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), where he and his collaborators established one of the earliest protein and DNA sequence databases fully integrated with machine learning programs for functional inference The goal was to reserve 3-5% of the funding for scholars of the humanities and social sciences to develop a system of ethics that would inform decisions about the development and deployment of the radically new technologies destined to emerge from the completion of the Project. In addition to the medical and scientific advances engendered by the Human Genome Project, it and its progeny have had a profound effect on research of cell biology. Computer scientists, in particular, transformed the topic and created a record of discovery destined to provide much material for studying the sociology of late 20th and early 21st century science. Computational and mathematical methods are now considered as important to progress in cell biology, a change that is forcing even the most conservative universities to develop new methods of biological education. The Human Genome Project enabled a rapid transformation of DOE's health, environmental and energy programs, increasing considerably the importance of the Office of Health and Environmental Research. 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 is imprinted: In 1987, DeLisi returned to New York as a professor and department chairperson at the
Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Boston University years In 1990 DeLisi joined
Boston University (BU) as dean of the College of Engineering. Under his watch the College grew into a leading research institution, adding among other things Centers for
Biotechnology,
Photonics and
Manufacturing Engineering. 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. In 1999 DeLisi initiated the nation's first Ph.D. program in
bioinformatics and served as chairperson for more than a decade. In 2000, after 10 years as dean, DeLisi resumed 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, as is an annual College of Engineering award lecture. 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, in 2011 he was elected an honorary citizen of
Marineo, Palermo, Italy, and in 2019 he was recipient of the
Informa Clinical and research excellence lifetime achievement award. == References ==