Michael began his academic science career studying exercise science at Portland State University. Wishing to explore the molecular basis for muscle function, he earned a PhD in Biology-Neurobiology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is now a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington and Director of the Center for Translational Muscle Research.  His research group studies the molecular mechanisms of cardiac and skeletal muscle disease. The data from their research are used to develop novel gene therapies, protein approaches to therapeutics, cell therapy, and tissue-engineering approaches for treatment of disease. The focus is on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate muscle contraction and how dysfunction occurs with disease or damage. Research in the Regnier lab is interdisciplinary, and studies are performed at multiple scales (protein, contractile filament, cell, tissue, and organ levels) using a wide variety of gene and protein engineering, biochemical, biomechanical and computational modeling approaches. Regnier lab research spans basic science to translational studies. Michael was a co-founder of BEAT BioTherapeutics, where he was a scientific advisor and board member for their heart failure program, targeting ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) to improve cardiac function in a range of cardiac indications. Michael’s research of RNR forms the basis of the Duchenne cardiomyopathy program at Kinea Bio.