Michael Karin

Dr. Karin received his BSc in Biology from Tel Aviv University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California Los Angeles in 1979. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. Dr. Karin has received numerous awards, including the Endocrine Society Oppenheimer Award for Excellence in 1990, American Cancer Society Research Professorship in 1999, C.E.R.I.E.S. Research Award for Physiology or Biology of the Skin in 2000, Harvey Prize in Human Health in 2011, Brupbacher Prize in Cancer Research in 2013, William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology in 2013, and an honorary Doctor of Medicine from the Technical University of Munich. He was a cofounder of Signal Pharmaceutical, which has become a part of Celgene, Inc. Dr. Karin had also served as a member of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Karin was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2005, the National Academy of Medicine in 2011 and as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Association in 2007. He became a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy in 2017. Dr. Karin’s current activity primarily focuses on understanding the relationship between inflammation, cancer, and metabolic disease as well as the signaling mechanisms used by receptors involved in inflammation and innate immunity. In addition to discovering some of the most important stress- and inflammation-responsive signal transduction pathways and establishing molecular links between obesity, inflammation and cancer, Dr. Karin’s work has revealed new targets for cancer prevention and therapy as well as for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and other metabolic diseases.