John V Moran

John V. Moran, Ph.D. is the Gilbert S. Omenn Collegiate Professor of Human Genetics and a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. He received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He conducted graduate studies with Dr. Philip S. Perlman, earning a M.S. degree in Molecular Genetics from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. His graduate research focused on elucidating group I and group II intron mobility mechanisms in Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial DNA. He conducted postdoctoral studies with Dr. Haig H. Kazazian at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School as a Damon Runyon/Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund Fellow. His postdoctoral research focused on developing systems to study the mobility of Long Interspersed Element-1 retrotransposons in cultured human cells. Dr. Moran became a faculty member at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1998. He was promoted to Associate Professor in the Departments of Human Genetics (with tenure) and Internal Medicine (without tenure) in 2003, and to Full Professor of Human Genetics (with tenure) and Internal Medicine (without tenure) in September 2008. Dr. Moran is an alumnus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, received the 2013 Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, and recently served on the American Society of Human Genetics Board of Directors. Dr. Moran has licensed reagents to Merck Pharmaceutical, was a paid consultant for a company in Europe & Gilead Sciences, and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Tessera Therapeutics (where he has equity options and is a paid consultant).

Since arriving at Michigan, Dr. Moran’s laboratory has been at the forefront of human transposable element research and has made important discoveries about the mechanism of LINE-1 and Short Interspersed Element (SINE) retrotransposition and their impact on the structure and function of the human genome. His laboratory currently uses a battery of multidisciplinary approaches to answer the following questions: (1) What are the molecular mechanisms responsible for LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition? (2) To what extent do somatic and germline LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition affect the structure and function of the human genome? and (3) What host factors influence LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition? Dr. Moran has published approximately 100 articles (the total includes articles, book chapters, perspectives, and a thesis) and developed many of the assays to study LINE-1 biology. The Moran laboratory is always on the lookout for motivated students and postdoctoral fellows. If you are interested in one of these positions, please contact Dr. Moran by email at: [email protected]