Dr. Michael B. Mathews received his BA and PhD degrees in Natural Sciences / Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge. After a year of voluntary service teaching in Kenya, he began his research career under the mentorship of Professor Asher Korner in the universities of Cambridge and Sussex, England. Dr. Mathews was a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Fred Sanger's department at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, and a Research Associate with Dr. Gordon Tomkins at the University of California, San Francisco. He moved to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, where he established a research group and held a series of positions over a period of more than twenty years.

Dr. Mathews joined New Jersey Medical School as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology in 1996. He has received local, national and international grants and awards, served as journal editor and on numerous editorial boards and review panels, organized international symposia, and promoted several research initiatives at NJMS. He trains both students and post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory. He is an authority on protein synthesis and virus-host cell interactions, and has published over 150 research articles, as well as scientific reviews and books. His current research focuses on HIV, RNA-binding proteins and regulatory RNAs.