Michael Skinner, Ph.D.

A man wearing a coat and hat.

SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Dr. Michael Skinner is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University, Pullman Washington, USA.  He did his B.S. in chemistry at Reed College in Portland Oregon, his Ph.D. in biochemistry / chemistry at Washington State University (WSU) and his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the C.H. Best Institute at the University of Toronto, Canada.  He has been on the faculty of Vanderbilt University and the University of California at San Francisco.  He is the Founding Director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at WSU and University of Idaho, which is the largest reproduction biology center in the world, with nearly 100 faculty.

Dr. Skinner’s current research has demonstrated the ability of environmental exposures (e.g., toxicants) promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance (non-genetic form of inheritance) of disease phenotypes due to abnormal germ line epigenetic programming in gonadal development.  Dr. Skinner has over 350 peer reviewed publications and has given over 350 invited symposia, plenary lectures and university seminars.  Dr. Skinner is the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Reproduction and the Oxford publishing journal Environmental Epigenetics. He has done Ted talks and had documentaries done on his research with BBC Horizon, PBS Nova, Smithsonian, and France ARTE. Dr. Skinner has also founded several biotechnology companies.

Illustration of the Washington state topography.