Michael P. McKinley received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, and both MS and PhD degrees from Arizona State University. In 1978, he accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Stanley Prusiner, where he worked for 12 years investigating prions and prion-diseases. In 1980, he became a member of the anatomy faculty at the UCSF Medical School, where he taught medical histology for 10 years while continuing to do research on prions. During this time, he was an author or co-author of more than 80 scientific papers. Michael was a member of the biology faculty at Glendale Community College from 1991 to 2012, where he taught undergraduate anatomy and physiology, general biology, and genetics. Between 1991 and 2000, he also participated in Alzheimer disease research and served as director of the Brain Donation Program at the Sun Health Research Institute, as well as teaching developmental biology and human genetics at Arizona State University, West. His vast experience in histology, neuroanatomy, and cell biology greatly shaped the related content in Human Anatomy. He retired from active teaching in 2012 and continues to be an active member of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS). Michael is coauthor of the McKinley/O’Loughlin/Bidle: Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach textbook. He resides in Tempe, AZ, with his wife Jan.