Michael J. Mann, MD, is the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. He received his M.D. from Stanford University and was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Research Training Fellowship through the NIH. Dr. Mann completed his General Surgery residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and his Cardiothoracic Surgery fellowship at UCSF. He is certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

Dr. Mann is also an attending surgeon at the UCSF Medical Center. His areas of expertise include lung cancer, mesothelioma, esophageal cancer, sarcoma and minimally invasive (video-assisted) thoracoscopic surgery. He also has expertise in performing cardiac procedures including coronary bypass, valve replacement, and aortic reconstruction.

Dr. Mann is widely admired for his teaching skills and is Assistant Director of the Thoracic Surgery Training Program. He holds memberships in numerous professional organizations including the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, American College of Surgeons, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and the Massachusetts Medical Society. Highly respected by his peers, Dr. Mann was named to the list of U.S. News "Top Doctors," which denotes the top 10% of physicians within a region practicing a given specialty. He has received numerous awards including the Cardiovascular Medicine Award for Excellence in Research, Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, and William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Young Investigators. Dr. Mann also serves as a scientific reviewer for numerous professional journals.

While on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Mann founded the Cardiovascular Gene Therapy Group. He also invented several novel drug and delivery technologies and helped pioneer the application of gene regulation and vascular biology principles to the problem of coronary bypass graft failure. This led to one of the first large scale programs to evaluate the integration of molecular therapy into cardiac surgery.

Dr. Mann's research in genetic and molecular therapies has been widely recognized. He is currently an Associate Investigator in the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute. Dr. Mann also serves as a scientific advisor to the American Heart Association, the NIH Recombinant-DNA Advisory Committee, and to numerous device and pharmaceutical companies. He is extensively published in his field and has presented his work widely on both a national and international level.