[4] His mother was a grade-school teacher, father was a business executive, and maternal grandfather was an Italian immigrant with a Ph.D. in engineering, whom Joyce credits for providing him with a "science gene.
"[5] Inspired by novelist Thomas Pynchon, Joyce became curious about the natural processes that enable Darwinian Evolution and began to focus on biochemistry and molecular genetics in high school.
and Ph.D. in 1984 and launching his own research program in 1989, Joyce married his wife, psychiatrist Nancy McTigue, in the Salk Institute courtyard.
[6] He was a professor at The Scripps Research Institute until 2017 and served as their dean of the faculty from 2006 to 2011,[7] during which time he was instrumental in founding a second campus in Jupiter, Florida.
[4] In 2009, Joyce's lab was the first to produce a self-replicating in vitro system, capable of exponential growth and continuing evolution, composed entirely of RNA enzymes.