Jesse grew up in Utah and earned a PhD in Biochemistry from Brigham Young University. He has been married for 46 years and has 4 children and 8 grandchildren. Jesse is currently teaching and conducting research at Tuskegee University.
Jesse has always been fascinated by the design of therapeutic peptides, proteins and their mimetics and their potential to overcome diseases in plants, animals and humans. His early work was the design of a protein which could be introduced into crop plants found in the developing world, as a means to overcome protein malnutrition.
Jesse became interested in disease immunity through small antibacterial peptides, and sought to utilize peptides to produce plants that would possess broad spectrum disease resistance. This has been a focus of his early work and he continues designing peptides to promote resistance to viral, bacterial, fungal and nematode diseases.
Jesse learned that just as designed peptides are effective in protecting plants from disease, they have value in treating animal and human diseases. His team were first to publish on designed antimicrobial peptides effective in eliminating pathogenic viruses, fungi, protozoa and their effect on cancer cells and tumors. This work has led to the recent successful completion of a phase III clinical trial in India utilizing one of the later generation peptides as a cream to control infections and promote enhanced wound healing in burn patients.
A few years ago, Jesse began a new area of design that has yielded molecules that can directly alter and improve certain conditions such as arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, lung fibrosis and cancer, by direct modulation of inflammatory cell-signaling pathways.
Dr. Jaynes has over 120 published works and more than 65 patents.
During his career, Jesse has had the opportunity to work with a number of gifted students and established scientists. A few years ago, Jesse met Dr. Lauranell Burch, and began to collaborate with the goal to develop an efficacious treatment of infections and fibrosis in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients.