Michael A. Marletta, Ph.D.

Aldo DeBenedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley
Professor of Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco
Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Michael A. Marletta was born in Rochester New York on February 12, 1951. After an A.B. degree in biology and chemistry from SUNY, College at Fredonia, in 1973, he received a PhD in 1978 from the University of California, San Francisco, working under Prof. George L. Kenyon. He then joined Prof. Christopher Walsh at M.I.T. for a 2 year postdoctoral appointment.

Marletta then joined the faculty at M.I.T. as an Assistant Professor of Toxicology in the Department of Applied Biological Sciences. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. In 1987 he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan as Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy and, in 1989, Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Medical School. In 1991 he was promoted to Professor in both departments and appointed the John G. Searle Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. In 1997 he became an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Marletta moved to the University of California, Berkeley in 2001 where he assumed the positions of Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. He also holds an appointment as Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF and Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He was appointed the Aldo DeBenedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in 2002. On I July 2005, he became Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Berkeley.

Awards he has received include the George H. Hitchings Award for Innovative Methods in Drug Discovery and Design (1991 ) sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and a Faculty Recognition Award from the University of Michigan (1992). He was awarded the Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award from SUNY Fredonia in 1993. In 1995 he received a MacArthur Fellowship awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He was elected Senior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and elected to the SUNY Honor Role in 1996. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1999. He was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award in Biomedical Research by the University of Michigan Medical School for 2000 and honored as the Michigan Scientist of the Year (2000) by the Impression 5 Science Museum. Also in 2000, he was a Lecture Platform Speaker at the Chautauqua Institution and selected for the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award at the University of Michigan. In 2001 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004 he was the recipient the Harrison Howe Award of the American Chemical Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. In 2007 he will receive the Repligen Award of the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry.

He is a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He currently serves on the Board of Editors of ACS Chemical Biology and on the editorial boards of a number of other journals. He is a consultant for a number of pharmaceutical companies and has served on the scientific advisory boards of NitroMed. Inc. and Oxon Medica Inc. He is a member of the Fredonia College Foundation Board of Directors.
He lives with his wife, Margaret Gutowski, and son in Berkeley, California.