About Dr. Michael Merchant

Michael Merchant, Ph.D., is a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology & Toxicology in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology & Toxicology as well as the Co-Director for the University of Louisville Core and Clinical Proteomics Laboratories. He joined the UofL Core Proteomics Laboratory in 2003 after working to help establish the proteomics effort in the Eastern Virginia Medical School, Strelitz Diabetes Institute in Norfolk, VA. Dr. Merchant’s research focuses on the application of mass spectrometry based proteomic methods to study human health and disease. His personal research focuses on the identification and confirmation of biomarkers associated with renal disease, or complications associated with renal disease such anemia or cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Merchant earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville under Collis R. Geren, Ph.D., and his research focused on protein chemistry and toxins isolated from spider and snake venoms.  Dr. Merchant was an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX (1994-2002) where he taught freshman chemistry as well as undergraduate and graduate biochemistry.  From 1998-2002 he spend time as a visiting researcher in the labs of Marty Scholtz and Nick Pace at the Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station Texas.  From 2002-2003 he worked with Drs. Arron Vinik and Gary Pittenger at the Strelitz Diabetes Institute to implement proteomic methods to investigate the pancreatic biology of the INGAP protein and peptide..

Dr. Merchant is a co-founder and Chief Technical Officer for Biomarker Discovery of Pharos Medicine, Inc., a UofL spin-off company, that develops clinical decision tools that integrate proteomics-discovered biomarkers with computer methods to guide drug dosing.