October 2011 | Gao and colleagues demonstrate that the mTOR inhibitor DEPTOR is a substrate of the E3 ubiquitin ligase SCFβTrCP. This body of work is a tour de force further illuminating the complex signaling mechanisms involved in metabolic control by the mTOR pathway | link

September 2011 | Sadanandam, Lyssiotis and colleagues apply bioinformatic analyses on a mouse model of breast cancer-specific osteolysis and human bone metastases to identify a potential therapeutic agent for human breast cancer bone metastasis | link | PDF

August 2011 | Locasale and colleagues demonstrate that certain tumors divert a large proportion of glucose into fueling biosynthesis of the amino acids serine and glycine. Notably, this activity is dependent on genetic amplification of the metabolic enzyme phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHDGH). This body of work provides the first example of an amplified metabolic enzyme and points to the potential for serine synthesis as a new drug target in cancer | link | PDF

May 2011 | Lyssiotis and colleagues describe a class of small molecules that replace the reprogramming factor Sox2 during the direct reprogramming of fibroblasts. These compounds provide new chemical tools to study the mechanisms underlying reprogramming and may ultimately help to bring iPS cell technology one step closer to clinical application | link

January 2011 | Lyssiotis and colleagues publish a comprehensive review on the chemical control of stem cell fate in the 50th anniversary issue of Angewandte Chemie | link

August 2010 | Costas is awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and is named the Amgen fellow | link | PDF