MICHAEL TEITELL, MD, PhD
Professor Department of Pathology & Laboratory Science

Michael Teitell is a Professor of Pathology and Chief of the Division of Pediatric and Neonatal Pathology in the UCLA School of Medicine since 1999. He received a BS and MS as a Departmental Scholar in Biochemistry from UCLA in 1985, and received a MD and PhD from the UCLA Medical Scientist Training Program in 1993. During his PhD studies with Dr. Mitchell Kronenberg, he discovered a fundamental role for a unique type of histocompatibility antigen in innate immune responses. During post-doctoral studies with Dr. Joe Gray at UCSF he helped move whole chromosome-based genetic detection methods to an array-based platform, a precursor to current-day microarray technologies. He did residencies in Anatomic Pathology at Harvard/Brigham and Women's Hospital and Clinical Pathology at UCSF and a fellowship in Pediatric Pathology at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. He is board-certified in 3 pathology specialties. Currently, Dr. Teitell is co-Director of the T32 Tumor Immunology Training Program, serves on the MSTP Executive and Admissions Committees, and is Chair of the UCLA Academic Senate Intercollegiate Athletics Committee. He received a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Scholar Award and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigators. He was also a LLS Stohlman Scholar. His lab studies immune system cancers, normal immune system development, and the generation of novel investigative nanotools. His group identified a new genetic pathway, centered on the TCL1 oncogene, which when dysfunctional leads to the B cell lymphomas. From this work, his group also created the first genetic model for B cell lymphomas that resemble most human lymphocyte malignancies. His group also co-identified a novel type of DNA methylation in immune system cancers and in genetic reprogramming of embryonic stem cells. Recently, studies of embryonic stem cell mitochondrial metabolism have shown parallel changes with cancer cells, suggesting a common mechanism for energy generation. Finally, his group has collaboratively developed new nanoscale methods for introducing large genetic regions into cancer and stem cells and for quantifying whole cell responses to stimulation or drugs in real-time as new ways to manipulate and investigate normal and cancerous development.

Read more about Michael Teitell:

• Teitell Lab
• Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center