Michael I. Kotlikoff is an American researcher, academic leader, and

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...

, who is currently the Provost of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1986, and made significant contributions to muscle biology, heart repair, and mouse genetics.

Biography

Born to a Jewish family Kotlikoff received his BA degree from the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude in literature, and his doctorate of veterinary medicine (VMD) summa cum laude from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. He then pursued research training earning a Ph.D. degree in Physiology at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

in 1994, before returning for postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania in the Veterinary and Medical schools. He was a faculty member at Penn, appointed in the Veterinary and Medical Schools from 1985 to 2000, and chaired the Department of Animal Biology at Penn from 1996 to 2000, while also serving as Director of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research from 1998-2000. In 2000, he was recruited to Cornell University to chair the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences, and to chair the Mammalian Genomics Initiative. As chair, Kotlikoff markedly expanded departmental research, oversaw the university's strategy to develop core mouse facilities, and established and oversaw the university transgenesis facility. In 2007, Kotlikoff was appointed

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the

Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine The New York State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University is a college of veterinary medicine at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Founded in 1894, it is the first statutory college established by the State University of New York ...

, and in 2015, he was appointed Cornell's 16th Provost. Following the death of President Beth Garrett, Kotlikoff served as acting President of Cornell for several months, until the appointment of Hunter Rawlings as interim President. Kotlikoff's laboratory works on cardiovascular biology and heart repair, and he leads a National Heart Lung and Blood Resource (the Cornell Heart, Lung, Blood Resource for Optogenetic Mouse Signaling) developing combinatorial mouse resources for in vivo biology. His laboratory reported development of the first mouse strain expressing genetically encoded Ca2+ sensing molecules and the first in vivo recording of heart cell Ca2+ signaling. In 2007, Kotlikoff's lab demonstrated the limited lineage potential of c-kit+ heart cells using a mouse line they developed expressing green fluorescent proteins in c-kit+ cells. This finding contradicted claims that c-kit+ precursor cells in the heart can act as heart stem cells after injury or isolation and transplantation. Numerous subsequent studies have confirmed these findings. In 2012 they showed that neonatal mammalian heart cells do have the potential to support neomyogenesis following heart infarction shortly after birth.Tallini, et al. PNAS 106:1808, 2009 and Jesty, et al. PNAS 109:13380, 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotlikoff, Michael University of Pennsylvania alumni University of California, Davis alumni Living people American veterinarians Male veterinarians Cornell University faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine alumni Year of birth missing (living people)