John E. Hearst (July 3, 1935 – October 25, 2022) was an American-Austrian chemist in the fields of chemistry and molecular biology and a Professor Emeritus at University of California Berkeley.
Hearst was born in Vienna, Austria on July 2, 1935, and immigrated to the United States as a small child to escape the Nazi regime.
In the 1970s he worked with his collaborated with his colleague Henry Rapport developing a photochemical method of inactivation of pathogens that became the basis for the work of HRI Research and HRI Associates and later the Cerus Corporation, which he co-founded in 1991.
He continued on as vice president of new science opportunities until his retirement in 2004 when he transitioned into a consulting role.
[4] He advised a number of graduate students during his career and led the Hearst Research Laboratory/group at Berkeley till his retirement.