Dr. Vishva Mitra Dixit, born in 1956 in Kenya, is a Kenyan‑American physician and internationally recognized researcher. He graduated from the University of Nairobi in 1980 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, after which he continued his medical training and research at Washington University in St. Louis, studying the biochemistry of thrombospondin under Prof. William Frazier.

In 1986, he joined the University of Michigan Medical School as an assistant professor, later rising to full professor. By 1994, he had shifted his research focus toward the mechanisms of cell death and inflammation. Dr. Dixit moved to Genentech in 1997 as Director of Molecular Oncology. He became head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry in 2009 and, in 2016, was appointed Vice President of Discovery Research. In this role, he also led Genentech’s postdoctoral program, mentoring and supporting numerous postdoctoral researchers worldwide in advancing fundamental studies on cell death and inflammation.

The work of Dr. Dixit and his team has led to foundational discoveries in TNF and LPS signaling, the regulation of NF‑κB, and the roles of key molecules such as A20, caspases, and RIPK1. They have also made major contributions to understanding canonical and non‑canonical inflammasome activation, as well as the biology of pore‑forming proteins including the gasdermins and NINJ1. His research has strong and longstanding connections to ongoing studies of cell death and inflammation at UGent.

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