Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry

Michael M. Cox was born in Wilmington, Delaware. In his first biochemistry course, the first edition of Lehninger's Biochemistry was a major influence in refocusing his fascination with biology and inspiring him to pursue a career in biochemistry. After graduate work at Brandeis University with William P. Jencks and post-doctoral work at Stanford with I. Robert Lehman, he moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1983. He became a full professor of Biochemistry in 1992.

Mike Cox has coordinated an active research team at Wisconsin investigating the function and mechanism of enzymes that act at the interface of DNA replication, repair, and recombination. That work has resulted in over 200 publications to date.

For more than three decades, Cox has taught introductory biochemistry to undergraduates and has lectured in a variety of graduate courses. He organized a course on professional responsibility for first-year graduate students and established a systematic program to draw talented biochemistry undergraduates into the laboratory at an early stage of their college career. He has received multiple awards for both his teaching and his research, including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, election as an AAAS fellow, and the UW Regents Teaching Excellence Award. Cox's hobbies include turning 18 acres of Wisconsin farmland into an arboretum, wine collecting, and assisting in the design of laboratory buildings.