Michael Simpson is Professor of Genetics and Head of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at King's College London. His research is in the genetics of human disease, with a particular focus on the skin, spanning both rare Mendelian conditions and common complex traits such as psoriasis and acne. The work is strongly quantitative, developing and applying statistical and computational methods to large-scale genomic datasets to identify causal variants and understand the biological mechanisms through which they act. He co-leads the international Skin Genetics Consortium.

Michael originally trained as a pharmacologist and subsequently studied Human Molecular Genetics at Imperial College before undertaking his PhD at St George's University of London. His doctoral research was focused on the resolution of the genetic basis of recessive disorders found at elevated frequency in Old Order Amish populations.

In 2009 Michael moved to King's College London where his research capitalised on advances in DNA sequencing technologies to identify the genetic basis of rare diseases that had proved intractable to traditional gene mapping approaches. Over the following years he directed a rare disease exome sequencing programme that identified more than thirty novel genetic causes of Mendelian disorders, contributing to the characterisation of conditions including Hajdu-Cheney syndrome, Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome and GATA2-associated lymphedema-AML.

In 2014 Michael joined Genomics plc, the Oxford spin-out, as its third employee and a member of the senior leadership team, where he held the roles of Co-Head of Science, Head of Human Genetics, and Director of Therapeutics Research. During his seven years at the company he helped grow it from founding to over 100 staff, and directed the development of its core data aggregation, harmonisation and inference technologies for therapeutic target discovery. He returned full-time to King's in 2021 and was appointed as the Head of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics in 2023.

Alongside the research group, Michael leads the Statistical and Computational Genetics and Genomics research interest group at King's, a cross-faculty community working at the intersection of genomics, data science, and human health. He is part of the leadership of the King's Prize Doctoral Programme in Genome Data Science and AI for Therapeutic Target Discovery, and is the SRO for Research and Innovation for the NHS South East Genomic Medicine Service Alliance. As Head of Department, his focus is on building an environment in which computational and experimental research groups working on the major questions in human genetics can thrive.