Michael Gale, Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of Immunology
The University of Washington School of Medicine
Seattle, Washington
USA

Michael Gale, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology at The University of Washington, School of Medicine.  He received his PhD in Pathobiology in 1994 at the University’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Seattle, Washington. He conducted post-doctoral research as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow, studying virus-host interactions that govern interferon action.  Dr. Gale was an Associate Professor and the Nancy C. and Jeffrey A. Marcus Endowed Scholar in Medical Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center until his June 2007 move to Seattle. He currently directs a molecular virology and innate immunity research program that encompasses a major focus on RNA viruses and interferon, and teaches Innate Immunity and Molecular Virology to medical and graduate students at The University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Gale served as the Chairman of the UT Southwestern Medical Center graduate program in Molecular Microbiology. He shares, along with Dr. Takashi Fujita, the 2006 Seymour and Vivian Milstein Award, given by International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research.

Dr. Gale is a formally trained molecular virologist and immunologist, and is specialist in virus signaling, interferon biology and innate intracellular immunity to virus infection.  He has studied the virology and viral immunology of herpes viruses, retroviruses, including HIV and SIV, influenza virus, hepatitis C virus, and West Nile virus. Dr. Gale directs a research program that is part of the Hepatitis C Virus Cooperative Research Centers national network funded by the National Institutes of Health and is focused on defining the virus-host interactions that regulate host cell innate antiviral defenses and interferon actions to control hepatitis C virus replication, persistence and the response to antiviral therapy. In addition, Dr. Gale’s research also encompasses programs of study aimed at understanding interferon biology, innate immunity to HIV infection, and the virus-host interactions that support and control West Nile virus infection and emergence. 

Dr. Gale is a member of several professional societies, including the American Society for Virology, American Society for Microbiology, and the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research. He has published several research papers, review articles, and chapters that address fundamental issues of virology, interferon biology, and innate antiviral host response to infection. He is a recipient a fellowship from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, of the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research Milstein Young Investigator Award, is a recipient of the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Global Infectious Disease Research Award, and has received both the Burroughs Welcome Investigator in Infectious Disease Research Award and the Research Achievement Award from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Dr. Gale recently won the Seymour and Vivian Milstein Award, given by International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research, in recognition of his discovery of the RIG-I pathway and its targeted regulation by hepatitis C virus revealing how human cells initiate and control immune defense against virus infection.  Dr. Gale the sits on the editorial review boards of Virology, The Journal of Virology, Antiviral Therapy, The Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research, Virology: Research and Treatment, and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for other major biomedical research journals.