Michael S. Wolfe

Michael S. Wolfe received his B.S. in chemistry in 1984 from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry in 1990 under Ron Borchardt from the University of Kansas. After postdoctoral stints at the University of Kansas (medicinal chemistry) and the NIH (cell biology), he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1994. In 1999, he moved to Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where his work focused on understanding the molecular basis of Alzheimer’s and related disorders and identifying effective approaches for pharmacological intervention, becoming Professor of Neurology in 2008. He joined the KU faculty in 2016 as the Mathias P. Mertes Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. In 2026 he was appointed as chair of the department. Awards for his work include the Sato Memorial International Award in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry from the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (2003), the MetLife Award for Biomedical Res