BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
NAME
POSITION TITLE (Current)
Aaron W Michels
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine
eRA COMMONS USER NAME (credential, e.g., agency login)
michels.a
EDUCATION/TRAINING
DEGREE
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
YEAR(s)
FIELD OF STUDY
(if
applicable)
Creighton University, Omaha, NE
B.S.
1997 - 2000 Chemistry
Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE M.D.
2000 - 2004 Medicine
University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE
Residency
2004 - 2007 Internal Medicine
University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO
Fellow
2007 - 2008 Clinical Endocrinology
Barbara Davis Center, Aurora, CO
Fellow
2008 - 2010 Immunology & Type 1
Diabetes
A. Personal Statement
I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine at the Barbara Davis
Center for Diabetes. I also serve as Director of Clinical Immunology at the Center. My professional research
career focuses on understanding the underlying immunology of autoimmune disorders with a focus on type 1
diabetes. Having lived with type 1 diabetes for the last twenty-two years, it is my career goal to contribute to
the prevention and ultimately a cure for the disease. I have an excellent background in chemistry and
immunology. Over the last several years, I have investigated the structural immunology of autoantigen
presentation to T cell receptors to understand the role of MHC class II alleles in mediating diabetes risk and
protection. Studies are currently being done in collaboration with John Kappler to understand the register of
insulin B chain amino acids 9-23 presented by human ‘diabetogenic’ MHC II alleles and subsequent T cell
responses to these register trapped peptides. Furthermore, I have used this structural immunology knowledge
to develop a novel research area. Under the tutelage of George Eisenbarth, we discovered that small ‘druglike’ molecules targeted to MHC class II antigen presentation can block T cell responses and prevent diabetes
onset in spontaneous animal models of autoimmune diabetes. The concept of blocking a specific MHC class II
allele is now being tested in a clinical trial with recent onset type 1 diabetes patients (ClinicalTrials.gov
NCT01883804).
B. Employment:
2004 – 2007
2012 – Present
2012 – Present
2013 – Present
Internal Medicine Residency, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE;
Board Certified in Internal Medicine
Clinical Fellow in Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes at the University of
Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO; Board Certified in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and
Metabolism
Research Fellow in Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes at the University of
Colorado; research at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes mentored by George
Eisenbarth MD, Ph.D
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics and Medicine, Barbara Davis Center,
Aurora, CO; tenure track
Director of Clinical Immunology at the Barbara Davis Center
Frieda and George S. Eisenbarth Clinical Immunology Endowed Chair
Director, CLIA Laboratory at the Barbara Davis Center
Honors:
2000 – 2004
2002
Creighton University School of Medicine Scholarship
Bernice Shanklin Memorial Scholarship from the Nebraska Medical Association
2007 – 2008
2008 – 2010
2010 – Present
2003
2004
2007
2008
2011
2012
2013
2013
Frank H Tanner, M.D., Scholarship from the Nebraska Medical Foundation
Walter J. O’Donohue, Jr., M.D. Achievement Award, Pulmonary/ Critical Care Division
Most Outstanding Medical Student of the Year
Excellent Oral Presentation by a House Officer at the Midwest Student Biomedical
Research Forum
O’Brien Physician Scientist Fellowship Award, provided by the Barbara Davis Center
for Childhood Diabetes
Travel Award to the Federation of Clinical Immunology Annual Meeting
Travel Award to the Federation of Clinical Immunology Annual Meeting
George S. Eisenbarth Memorial Lecture at the National Institute of Health
Travel Award to the American Diabetes Association Annual Meeting
C. Selected Peer-reviewed publications (in chronological order from 24 peer-reviewed publications).
1. Michels AW and Eisenbarth GS. Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type 1 as a Model for
Understanding Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type 2. J Internal Medicine. 2009 265:530-40.
PMID 19382992.
2. Michels AW and Eisenbarth GS. Immunologic Endocrine Disorders. Journal of Allergy and Clinical
Immunology. 2010 Feb; 125:S226-37. PMID: 20176260.
3. Michels AW and Gottlieb PA. Autoimmune Polyglandular Syndromes. Nat Rev, Endocrinol. 2010
6:270-7. PMID 20309000.
4. Michels AW and Nakayama M. The Anti-Insulin Trimolecular Complex in Type 1 Diabetes. Current
Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Obesity 2010; 17:329-34. PMID: 20489610.
5. Michels AW and von Herrath MG. 2011 Update: antigen specific therapies in type 1 diabetes. Current
Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Obesity 2011; 18:235-40. PMID: 21844706.
6. Michels AW and Eisenbarth GS. Immune intervention in type 1 diabetes. Seminars in Immunology
2011:23:214-19. PMID 21852151.
7. Crawford F, Stadinski B, Jin N, Michels A, Nakayama M, Pratt P, Marrack P, Eisenbarth G, and
Kappler JW. The specificity and detection of insulin reactive CD4+ T cells in type-1 diabetes in the NOD
mouse. PNAS 2011 108(40):16729-34. PMID 21949373.
8. Zhang L, Stadinski B, Michels A, Kappler JW, and Eisenbarth GS. Immunization with an insulin peptide
–MHC complex to prevent type 1 diabetes of NOD mice. Diabetes Metabolism Research and Reviews
2011 Nov; 27 (8):784-9. PMID: 22069260.
9. Michels AW, Ostrov DA, Zhang L, Nakayama M, Fuse M, Mcdaniel K, Roep BO, Gottlieb PA, Atkinson
MA, and Eisenbarth GS. Structure-based selection of small molecules to alter allele-specific MHC
class II antigen presentation. Journal of Immunology 2011 Dec 1; 187(11):5921-30. PMID: 22043012.
10. Herold KC, Gitelman SE, Willi SM, Gottlieb PA, Waldron-Lynch F, Devine L, Sherr J, Rosenthal SM,
Adi S, Jalaludin MY, Michels AW, Dziura J, Bluestone JA. Teplizumab treatment may improve Cpeptide responses in participants with type 1 diabetes after the new-onset period: a randomized
controlled trial. Diabetologia. 2013 Feb; 56(2):391-400. PMID: 23086558.
11. Michels AW. Targeting the Trimolecular Complex: The Pathway Towards Type 1 Diabetes
Prevention. Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics 2013 Jun;Suppl 2:S2-12. PMID: 23786298.
12. Gottlieb PA, Delong T, Baker RL, Fitzgerald-Miller L, Wagner R, Cook G, Rewers MR, Michels A,
Haskins K. Chromogranin A is a T cell antigen in human type 1 diabetes. J Autoimmun. 2013 Nov;
S0896-8411(13)00135-2.PMID: 24239002.
13. Michels AW. Targeting the Trimolecular Complex. Clinical Immunology 2013 Dec;149(3):339-44.
PMID: 23537861.
14. Atkinson MA, Eisenbarth GS, Michels AW. Type 1 diabetes. Lancet. 2014 Jan 4;383(9911):6982.PMID: 23890997.