Michael J. Welsh

Michael James Welsh is an American pulmonologist. He is the current Roy J. Carver Chair in Biomedical Research, the Professor of Internal Medicine in Pulmonary, Critical Care and Occupational Medicine at the Department of Internal Medicine, and the Director of Pappajohn Biomedical Institute, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa. He is also a professor at the Department of Neurosurgery, Department of Neurology, and Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. He also received the 2025 Lasker Award.

Early life and education Welsh was born and raised in Marshalltown, Iowa, and went to Loras College in Dubuque.

Career After his residency, Welsh spent 2 years at the University of California, San Francisco and then University of Texas Medical School at Houston as a research fellow, returning to the University of Iowa in 1981 and becoming an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, eventually promoted to Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. and has been the President of the Association of American Physicians. Currently, Welsh is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (since 1989) and sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. In 1989, Lap-Chee Tsui, Francis Collins, and their team discovered the gene that encodes the CFTR protein and found that changes in the protein caused cystic fibrosis. Welsh's group discovered in 1991 that the CFTR protein is a chloride channel, meaning it allows chloride ions to pass across the cell membrane. The same year, his group reported how the activity of the CFTR protein could be regulated. He later categorized the four classes of CFTR mutations that are still in use today in an expanded format. Crucially, Welsh and his group found that when the CFTR protein contains F508del mutation, the most common mutation in cystic fibrosis patients, it could be transported to the cell surface under low temperature but not at body temperature. His study also showed F508del-mutated CFTR protein can function properly if it reached cell surface, paving the way for cystic fibrosis therapies. In recent years, Welsh has developed animal models of cystic fibrosis, most notably in pigs, allowing for the study of the disease in an in vivo setting.

Honors and awards 1994 - James Burns Amberson Lecture, American Thoracic Society 1997 - Member of the National Academy of Medicine 1998 - Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2000 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2009 - Gordon Wilson Medal, American Clinical and Climatological Association 2017 - Steven C. Beering Award, Indiana University School of Medicine 2018 - Warren Alpert Foundation Prize 2020 - George M. Kober Medal 2022 - Shaw Prize in Life Science & Medicine 2023 - Wiley Prize 2023 - Switzer Prize