Dr. Michael Katzman's research for more than two decades focused on the structure and function of the retroviral integrase enzyme that catalyzes the permanent integration of a copy of the retroviral genome into the DNA of an infected cell using three systems including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), avian sarcoma viruses and visna virus. Among other contributions, he participated in the first purification of an enzymatically active retroviral integrase from a bacterial expression system, developed an assay still used to study this enzyme, created chimeric integrases to identify the parts of integrase that interact with viral or human DNA and the parts of viral DNA that interact with integrase, used HIV integrases from infected patients to identify an amino acid in the middle of the protein that contacts human DNA during integration, made mutations at this position to yield novel integrases that were improved at acting on viral DNA but impaired at acting on cellular DNA and explored the potential of stimulating integrase's ability to nick DNA nonspecifically for a novel antiviral strategy of using integrase to damage viral DNA. With the evolution of his career, Dr. Katzman's focus shifted to the appropriate usage of antimicrobial drugs in the healthcare setting, and in 2011 he established, and continues to direct, a successful Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

Dr. Katzman is a Distinguished Educator at Penn State College of Medicine and Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.