Distinguished University Professor
Michael A. Savageau

Michael A. Savageau, founder and director of the Bioinformatics Program from 1998 to 2001, was among the first to identify the need for an integrated approach to understand the processes and the enormous amounts of data arising from the molecular study of biological systems. He began to develop the field of biochemical systems analysis more than 25 years ago.

Savageau has contributed to the blossoming of biochemical, genetic and molecular cell biology with his mathematical framework for integrating the behavior of complex biological systems and his powerful analytical method used to compare complex systems.

He joined the faculty in 1970 and directed the Cellular Biotechnology Laboratories in Chemical Engineering in 1988–91. Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology since 1993, he has contributed to the design, administration and long-term success of numerous interdisciplinary programs, including bioengineering, cellular and molecular biology and the Medical Scientist Training Program.

An outstanding teacher and mentor, he is admired for teaching highly interdisciplinary courses in a way that makes the material readily accessible to undergraduates and graduates, often relying on wonderful analogies to explain difficult topics. His book, “Biochemical Systems Analysis: A Study of Function and Design in Molecular Biology,” is considered a classic and a forerunner to the study of functional genomics.

Savageau has chaired the Special Study Section on Biochemical Modeling at the National Institutes of Health since 2000 and was the initial principal investigator for a $19 million Michigan Life Sciences Research Corridor grant focusing on biological information. He has served on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals.

Savageau has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Germany. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and senior fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. The Medical School honored him with an international symposium in honor of his 60th birthday.