"mTOR signaling in growth, metabolism and disease"

Michael N. Hall was born in Puerto Rico and spent his childhood years in South America (Venezuela and Peru). He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1981, 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 also has an appointment at L. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. where he runs a research group in the Basel Institute of Human Biology (IHB). Dr. Hall is a pioneer in the fields of TOR signaling and cell growth control. In 1991, Dr. Hall and colleagues discovered TOR (Target of Rapamycin) and subsequently elucidated its role as a central controller of cell growth and metabolism. TOR plays a key role in development and aging, and is implicated in various disorders including cancer, allograft rejection, and diabetes. Dr. 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), and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2017).