1994 University of Tampa, B.S. 2001 University of Miami - School of Medicine, Ph.D. 2002 Salk Institute for Biological Studies, postdoctoral fellowship 2003 H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Institute, postdoctoral fellowship Michael Carastro earned his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Subsequent to completing his doctoral studies, he acquired extensive postdoctoral training in human gene expression and molecular oncology. Before coming to The University of Tampa in 2006, he was an assistant professor of pharmacology at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and an associate member of the Penn State Cancer Institute. In addition to his current faculty position at UT, the H. Lee Moffitt Comprehensive Cancer Center and Research Institute awarded him an appointment at the level of member in 2007.

Carastro's earliest research work was in the molecular biology of genomic instability, DNA replication and gene expression (Carastro et al 2002; Lu et al 2002). His more recent research work involves the molecular mechanisms that regulate tumor suppression genes, including p53 (Strudwick et al 2003) and prohibitn (Joshi et al 2006). He has received research funding from the National Cancer Institute for his work on the Vitamin D receptor (Roff et al 2010). In addition, he has written about, taught graduate courses on and conducted laboratory research in the fields of pharmacogenetics and nutriceuticals in cancer prevention and treatment.