Michael N. Hall was born (1953) in Puerto Rico and grew up in South America (Venezuela and Peru). He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France) and the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the Biozentrum of the University of Basel (Switzerland) in 1987 where he is currently Professor and former Chair of Biochemistry.

Hall has won many prestigious prizes for his pioneering research such the Louis-Jeantet prize (2009) and Albert Lasker award (2017).

Hall is a leader in the fields of TOR signalling and cell growth control. In 1991, Hall and colleagues discovered TOR (Target of Rapamycin) and subsequently elucidated its role as a central controller of cell growth and metabolism. TOR plays a key role in development and ageing, and is implicated in various disorders including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity.