Michael Gale Jr., Ph.D., CIIID Director

The CIIID is directed by Michael Gale, Jr. Ph. D., Professor of Immunology at the University Of Washington School Of Medicine. Dr. Gale is an expert in innate immunity, virology, immunology, cytokine biology, virus/host interactions, and immune signaling. His laboratory works to define how virus/host interactions trigger and control innate immunity to direct the outcome of infection and the immune response. Reuters ranks Dr. Gale in the top 1% of cited scientists for medical publications in microbiology/immunology. Throughout his career he has received prestigious awards from top organizations. He was a fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, he received the WM Keck Foundation research achievement award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in Infectious Disease award, the Ellison Medical Foundation Infectious Disease Research award, the Milstein Award from the International Society of Interferon and Cytokine Research, and others. He was elected to the American Academy for Microbiology in 2013. Dr. Gale serves as editor for PLOS Pathogens, and is on the editorial board of several scientific journals. He holds multiple patents in the field of innate immunity, and is a founding scientist of Kineta, Inc. a Seattle biotech company focused on developing innate immune therapeutics. Dr. Gale has published over 200 articles and book chapters in the area of innate immunity.

Dr. Gale's research is focused on understanding the molecular basis of immune programming through innate immune signaling and effector action. His lab includes work to identify the innate immune effector genes that serve to protect and control infection by pathogenic RNA viruses, and his group is developing novel innate immune immunotherapeutic approaches to treat infection, enhance vaccine efficacy, and to mediate immune programming for defense against cancer, viral infection, and immune disease.

Dr. Gale works closely with Drs. Keith Elkon, Tomas Mustelin and Ed Clark, CIIID Associate Directors.