Michael Kotlikoff

Michael I. Kotlikoff is an American biomedical researcher, academic leader, veterinarian, former provost of Cornell University from 2015 to 2024, and interim president of Cornell University since July 2024.^[1][2] Since 1986, his academic research on cardiovascular biology, optogenetics, mouse genetics, and ion channel function has been funded by the National Institutes of Health.

In 1973, Kotlikoff received a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1981, he received his Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris (VMD) from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He then pursued research training, earning a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in physiology at the University of California, Davis in 1984, before returning for postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania in its veterinary and medical schools.^[3]

From 1985 to 2000, Kotlikoff worked as a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania's Veterinary and Medical Schools. From 1996 to 2000, he served as chairman of the University's Department of Animal Biology and director of its Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research from 1998 to 2000. His work helped establish the identity and function of ion channel proteins in muscle cells, and his laboratory helped create and progressively improve Green Fluroescent Protein (GFP)-based optogenetic sensor molecules, termed GCaMPs, and created the first transgenic mouse expressing an optogenetic sensor.

In 2000, he was recruited by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to chair the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences, and to chair its Mammalian Genomics Initiative. As chair, Kotlikoff expanded departmental research, oversaw the university's strategy to develop core mouse facilities, and established and oversaw the university transgenesis facility. In 2007, Kotlikoff was appointed dean of Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, where he maintained its research laboratory, raised funds, oversaw the renovation of the college's main buildings, expanded research programs, partnered with City University of Hong Kong to establish the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, the first accredited veterinary college in Asia. He also supported the expansion of clinical programs, including establishing Cornell's first community-based academic referral practices, Cornell University Veterinary Specialists, and Ruffian Equine Center.

Kotlikoff's laboratory currently works on cardiovascular biology and heart repair, and he leads a National Heart Lung and Blood Resource, the Cornell Heart, Lung, Blood Resource for Optogenetic Mouse Signaling,^[4] which develops combinatorial mouse resources for in vivo biology. His laboratory reported development of the first mouse strain to express genetically=encoded Ca2+ sensing molecules and the first in vivo recording of heart cell calcium signaling. In 2007, Kotlikoff's lab demonstrated the limited lineage potential of c-kit+ heart cells using a mouse line they developed expressing green fluorescent proteins in c-kit+ cells. This finding contradicted claims that c-kit+ precursor cells in the heart can act as heart stem cells after injury or isolation and transplantation. Numerous subsequent studies have confirmed these findings. In 2012 they showed that neonatal mammalian heart cells do have the potential to support neomyogenesis following heart infarction shortly after birth.^[5]

In 2015, following an international search, Cornell president Elizabeth Garrett announced Kotlikoff's appointment as Cornell's 16th provost.^[6] During Garrett's illness and following her death, Kotlikoff served as Cornell's acting president until April 2016, when Hunter R. Rawlings III was appointed as the university's interim president.^[7][8] As provost, Kotlikoff oversaw the establishment of Cornell's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell Computing and Information Science program, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, reorganization of the social sciences into multi-college departments, and the Cornell Veterans Initiative. In 2020, Kotlikoff and then-President Martha E. Pollack led Cornell's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which included a university-wide diagnostic program driven by epidemiologic data, and resulted in one of the open residential campuses being able to host in-person classes and experiencing low level of infection.

On July 1, 2024, following the retirement of Cornell University president Martha E. Pollack as the university's 14th president, Kotlikoff began a two year term as interim president of Cornell University.^[9]