Biographical sketch:

Michael N. Hall received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France) and the University of California, San Francisco.  He joined the Biozentrum of the University of Basel (Switzerland) in 1987 where he is currently Professor and former Chair of Biochemistry.  Since 2023, he is also a Distinguished Principal Investigator at the Institute of Human Biology of Hoffmann-La Roche (Basel).  Hall is a pioneer in the fields of mTOR signaling and cell growth control.  In 1991, Hall and colleagues discovered mTOR (mechanistic Target of Rapamycin) and subsequently elucidated its role as a central controller of cell growth and metabolism.  The discovery of mTOR led to a fundamental change in how one thinks of cell growth.  It is not a spontaneous process that just happens when building blocks (nutrients) are available, but rather a highly regulated, plastic process controlled by mTOR-dependent signaling pathways.  As a central controller of cell growth and metabolism, mTOR plays a key role in development, aging, and disease.  Hall is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2009), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2014), the Canada Gairdner Award for Biomedical Research (2015), the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2017), the Sjöberg Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2020), and the Balzan Prize (2024).

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