Michael A Holinstat

Dr. Michael Holinstat is a professor in the department of pharmacology and a fellow of the American Heart Association. Dr. Holinstat’s research interests focus on understanding lipid, lipoxygenase, and oxygenase regulation of platelet signaling and function and how it relates to regulation of hemostasis and thrombosis. He serves as the inaugural Director of the Platelet Physiology and Pharmacology Platelet Core at the University of Michigan. Additionally, Dr. Holinstat serves on several national boards including the sub-committee on Hemostasis and Thrombosis at the American Society for Hematology and the Director for the NIH CTSI-funded T32 training grant in clinical research. Dr. Holinstat has received several national awards including the Kenneth M. Brinkhous Young Investigator Prize in Thrombosis from the Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology in 2012 and the Young Investigator Award in Structure-Function from the Eicosanoid Research Foundation in 2013. Dr. Holinstat has received numerous patents from the US, EU, and Japan patent offices for various therapeutic discoveries to treat cardiovascular disease. In addition to his NIH-funded research, Dr. Holinstat continues to translate his discoveries into potential clinical application through collaborations with Veralox Therapeutics, Cereno Scientific, and Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Holinstat has published over 106 peer-reviewed publications in the area of platelet biology and lipids and his work is highly cited with an H-index of 41. Dr. Holinstat has spent the last 20 years training the next generation of clinical and translational scientists in the area of blood clotting, platelet biochemistry, and discovery of novel therapeutic approaches for treating thrombosis including undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, and basic and clinical faculty.

Dr. Holinstat’s lab is studies various aspects of platelet function and thrombosis spanning studies in basic science, clinical investigations, as well as clinical trials in thrombotic risk in several at-risk populations. His studies current focus on several aspect of platelet regulation in hemostasis and thrombosis including 1) a clinical trial to determine novel approaches to limiting thrombosis in diabetes, 2) clinical research on thrombotic risk disparities by race, 3) oxylipin regulation of platelets, and 4) discovery of a first-in-human novel targets for preventing platelet activation and thrombosis including the discovery and development of several novel therapeutic drugs including 1) ML355 (also known as VLX-1005), a 12-lipoxygenase inhibitor developed by Dr. Holinstat’s lab that is currently in phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis, and 2) CS585, a prostacyclin receptor agonist invented by Dr. Holinstat’s lab that is currently in preclinical development for treatment of a number of diseases including thrombosis.