Rate My Professor Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Arizona, a position he has held since his promotion in 2025 after serving as Assistant Professor from 2022 to 2025. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry with honors from Salisbury University in 2006 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Delaware in 2013. Taylor's earlier career includes a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge from 2012 to 2017 under Matthew J. Gaunt and an Assistant Professorship at the University of Wyoming from 2017 to 2022. His academic journey began with undergraduate research in Elizabeth T. Papish’s group at Salisbury University.

Taylor's research centers on designing, developing, and applying new organic chemical transformations that create non-natural covalent bonds on biomolecules to probe the chemistry-biology interface in living systems. Employing multidisciplinary approaches including physical organic chemistry, mechanistic photochemistry, synthesis, cellular biology, and proteomics, his group addresses challenges in creating biocompatible reactions for complex biological environments. Notable advancements include photo-induced electron transfer-driven protein modification using donor-acceptor pyridinium salts for site-selective tryptophan carbamylation and global chemoproteomic profiling in live cells. Key publications encompass 'A Protein Functionalization Platform Based on Selective Reactions at Methionine Residues' (Nature, 2018), 'Donor-Acceptor Pyridinium Salts for Photo-Induced Electron Transfer Driven Protein Modification in Peptides, Proteins and Proteomes' (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022), 'Selective Modification of Tryptophan Residues in Peptides and Proteins Using a Biomimetic Electron Transfer Process' (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2020), and 'Photochemical Protein Modification in Complex Biological Environments: Recent Advances and Considerations for Future Chemical Methods Development' (Biol. Chem., 2022). Taylor has received prestigious awards including the NSF CAREER Award (2021), NIH Outstanding Investigator Award (R35 MIRA, 2021), University of Wyoming Presidential Scholarly Achievement Award (2022), Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2020), ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Academic Young Investigator (2024), Marie-Curie International Incoming Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014-2016), Sigma-Aldrich Graduate Student Innovation Award (2012), and Brennie A. Hackley Jr. Excellence in Research Award (2012). His contributions enhance real-time studies of biological processes, disease perturbations, drug discovery, and therapeutic design.