Alan R. Saltiel

Alan R. Saltiel was the Mary Sue Coleman Director of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan; a professor at the Division of Molecular Medicine and Genetics at the University of Michigan Medical School; a faculty member at the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center; and John Jacob Abel Professor of Life Sciences, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology; a member of the Steering Committee Member at the Center for Advancing Research & Solutions for Society. He served as the Director of the Life Sciences Institute from 2001 to 2015. He was also a John Jacob Abel Collegiate Professor of the Life Sciences at the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the UM Medical School. He holds an AB from Duke University (1975) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina (1980).
During his doctorate studies in biochemistry at the University of North Carolina, Saltiel worked on thyroid-stimulating hormone and its relationship to thyroid cancer. As a post-doctoral fellow under Pedro Cuatrecasas in the Wellcome Research Labs, he began investigating insulin. He was Distinguished Research Fellow and Senior Director of the Department of Cell Biology at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division (now Pfizer Global Research). In addition to having published more than 260 research papers, Saltiel holds 16 patents and has extensive experience with the FDA's testing and approval process for new drugs.
Saltiel's lab researches signaling pathways in insulin action. Such research is aimed at identifying the various ways in which problems with the insulin signaling pathway trigger diabetes. Researchers in the lab have also uncovered new hormone signaling pathways and the role that proteins and genes play in this process. These discoveries may reveal how the insulin-glucose balance necessary for the survival of the cell is lost due to obesity in those with diabetes.

Saltiel has received many awards over the course of his career, including the Rosalyn Yalow Research and Development Award from the American Diabetes Association, Hirschl Award, The John Jacob Abel Award from ASPET and The Goodman and Gilman Award, also from ASPET. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His work is often cited in biochemistry literature; with more than 35,000 citations as of February 2014, he ranks among the most influential scientists in biology and biochemistry in the world.

His true dream is to star for the New York Knicks.