Michael Nip Hall[1]
Michael N. Hall in 2014
Born	(1953-06-12)June 12, 1953 (age 72)[2] Puerto Rico[3]
Education	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BS) Harvard University (PhD)
Known for	Discovery and research ofTOR
Awards	Balzan Prize Sjöberg Prize Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Szent-Györgyi Prize  Canada Gairdner International Award Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Sir Hans Krebs Medal Marcel Benoist Prize Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
Scientific career
Fields	Molecular biology
Institutions	University of Basel University of California, San Francisco Pasteur Institute
Thesis	Genetic studies on the regulation of the major outer membrane porin proteins of Escherichia coli K-12 (1981)
Doctoral advisor	Thomas J. Silhavy

Michael Nip Hall (born 12 June 1953) is an American-Swissmolecular biologist andprofessor at theBiozentrum of theUniversity of Basel,Switzerland.^[4] He discoveredTOR, aprotein central for regulatingcell growth.

Hall was born inPuerto Rico. His parents likedLatin American culture, so they moved toPeru when he was three years old, and then toVenezuela a few years later.^[5] When Hall was 13, he went to theUnited States forboarding school, atSt. Mark's School inSouthborough,Massachusetts.^[4][5]

Hall entered theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as anarts major, but switched tozoology as he wanted to studymedicine,^[5] earning hisBSc in 1976.^[2] He found out he was not attracted to medicine after working at a localhospital, and turned to research when working on his undergraduate honorsthesis in amolecular genetics laboratory.^[5] Hall obtained hisPhD fromHarvard University in 1981.^[2]

Hall was intrigued with the research ofFrançois Jacob andJacques Monod onbacterialgenetics, and so he went to thePasteur Institute inParis as a research fellow in 1981 for eight months.^[5] He then joinedIra Herskowitz's group at theUniversity of California, San Francisco as apostdoctoral fellow. He became aprincipal investigator in 1984, leading his own research group.^[4]

In 1987, Hall moved toBasel,Switzerland, and joined the Division ofBiochemistry of theBiozentrum,University of Basel, as anassistant professor.^[4] He was promoted toprofessor in 1992.^[2]

Hall was twice appointed Vice Director of the Biozentrum, from 2002 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2016.^[4] He was also Chairman of theEuropean Molecular Biology Organization Council between 2021 and 2022, served on the Council from 2017 to 2019 and again from 2020 to 2022.^[6]

Currently, Hall serves on the Board of Trustees of theLouis-Jeantet Foundation.^[7]

Hall is a pioneer in thePI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway andcell growth control, and is best known for discoveringmTOR. In 1991, Hall seminally discovered twogenes that, when mutated, maderapamycin unable to inhibit cell growth inyeasts.^[8] Hall named themTOR1 andTOR2, short for "Target of Rapamycin",^[9] which his group also sequenced and characterized.^[10][11]

Three years later,Stuart Schreiber identified themammalian counterpart ofTOR, known as the "mammalian target of rapamycin" (mTOR).^[12] The gene and theprotein it encodes are later renamed the "mechanistic target of rapamycin", while the short form remains mTOR.^[13]

The protein encoded by theTOR (and mTOR) gene is aprotein kinase activated bygrowth factors,nutrients, andinsulin. It is a central controller of cell growth and metabolism. The TOR protein plays a key role in aging and the development of diseases such ascancer,obesity,diabetes, andcardiovascular disease.^[14]

After the discoveringTOR, Hall continued studying the function and regulation ofTOR and mTOR in yeasts andhumans. His group was the first to recognize that yeastTOR1 andTOR2 proteins can form twoprotein complexes (known as TORC1 and TORC2) with distinct functions and compositions.^[15] They went on to show the mammalian counterpart of TORC2 (named mTORC2) is not inhibited by rapamycin and regulates a differentsignaling pathway from mTORC1.^[16]

Hall also identified many roles of mTORC1 and mTORC2, includingribosomes physically interact with and activate mTORC2,^[17]glutaminebreakdown stimulates mTORC1,^[18] and mTORC2 promoteslipidsynthesis and cancer.^[19] Collaborating withNenad Ban and Timm Maier, Hall reported the structures of mTORC1 in 2016^[20] and mTORC2 in 2018.^[21]

• Official website

• 1953 births
• Living people
• St. Mark's School (Massachusetts) alumni
• University of California, San Francisco alumni
• Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Harvard University alumni
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
• Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Biozentrum University of Basel
• Pasteur Institute
• Academic staff of the University of Basel
• University of California, San Francisco staff
• Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
• American emigrants to Switzerland

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