Prior to joining Amgen, Deshaies served as a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an executive officer in Caltech’s Division of Biology and Biological Engineering. He was also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has published over 150 papers on various subjects including discoveries of Sec61 translocon, cullin–RING ubiquitin ligases, and proteolysis-targeting chimeric molecules (Protacs).
In addition to his academic work, Deshaies co-founded Proteolix in 2003. In 2011, he co-founded Cleave Biosciences.
Deshaies holds a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.