Andras Perl received his MD and PhD from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. He held faculty positions at Semmelweis, the University of Rochester, and the State University of New York (SUNY) in Buffalo and Syracuse. He has been Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 1997, Chief of Rheumatology since 2001, and SUNY Distinguished Professor since 2017. His laboratory discovered mitochondrial hyperpolarization (MHP). MHP is a source of mitochondrial oxidative stress and a checkpoint of T-cell activation and death signal processing. His team has identified disease susceptibility genes that regulate mitochondrial homeostasis, autophagy, activation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, and cell death signal processing in mouse models and patients with autoimmunity, cancer, metabolic diseases. He has initiated successful clinical trials in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) blocking mTOR with N-acetylcysteine or sirolimus. He has published over 190 original peer-reviewed papers in leading medical and scientific journals, authored chapters in rheumatology and immunology textbooks, trained over 60 MD/PhD and PhD students and postdoctoral and rheumatology fellows. His laboratory has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1996. He has been listed among the Best Doctors in America since 2007.