Dr. DeBose-Boyd was born and raised in a small rural southeastern Oklahoma community (population 700) where he graduated from Boswell High School, Boswell, Oklahoma in 1989. Soon thereafter, he began undergraduate studies at Southeastern Oklahoma State University (SOSU) in Durant, OK, where he participated in the Minority Biomedical Research Support program. Dr. DeBose-Boyd obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Biology in 1993. Upon completion of undergraduate studies, he was accepted into the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and joined the laboratory of Richard D. Cummings, Ph. D. In 1998, he successfully defended his thesis entitled, "Identification, characterization, and molecular cloning of alpha 1,3 fucosyltransferases in parasitic and non-parasitic helminths." Following his defense, Dr. DeBose-Boyd joined the laboratory of Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D. and Michael S. Brown, M.D. at UT Southwestern Medical Center as a fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research. After a successful postdoctoral fellowship, Drs. Goldstein and Brown invited Dr. DeBose-Boyd to join the faculty of the Molecular Genetics department as an Assistant Professor in 2003. He became an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association in 2005 and a W.M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research in 2006. Dr. DeBose-Boyd was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007 and in 2009 he was appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist. Dr. DeBose-Boyd is married to Gwendolyn and has two sons, Reginald and Ryan.