Newswise — The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced today that Michele Pagano, M.D., the May Ellen and Gerald Ritter Professor of Oncology in the Department of Pathology at NYU Langone Medical Center, is among the 56 top scientists who will be appointed as HHMI Investigators this year.
The selection ranks as one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a biomedical research scientist, because HHMI offers its investigators the resources and the freedom to explore their own lines of inquiry. Scientists are selected for their creativity, their innovative ideas, and their productivity. They are granted the flexibility to follow their scientific instincts and take risks rather than relying on specific research grants for predefined projects. In doing so, the philanthropy aims to encourage scientists to "extend the boundaries of knowledge" and to "pursue challenging questions" that make fundamental scientific discoveries possible. Dr. Michele Pagano was among those selected from more than 1,000 applications. His research explores the roles that the ubiquitin system plays in cell proliferation, differentiation, and death, and how the deregulation of the system can cause cancers.
Since he joined the NYU Department of Pathology, Dr. Pagano has been working on the ubiquitin system, which is part of the cell's recycling organization, with a particular focus on F-box proteins, components of the system that are almost ubiquitous in the cell's workings, doing many things.
Dr. Pagano's research group found that this family of proteins helps control many important cellular processes such as cell proliferation, DNA-damage checkpoints, chromosomal stability, ribosomal biogenesis (the process of making ribosomes, complexes of RNA and protein), protein synthesis, apoptosis (cell death), neurogenesis (the creation of new brain cells), and even the setting of the circadian clock.
Dr. Pagano has also found that many F-box proteins have connections to cancer. They play key roles in both tumor suppression and tumor activation. He discovered that low levels of certain F-box proteins were by themselves a warning that a tumor may be developing. In other cases, such as in breast cancer, he demonstrated that high levels of one particular F-box protein represent a diagnostic sign that the cancer is of a highly aggressive form. In a third instance, raising levels of a different F-box protein seems to sensitize tumors to certain anticancer drugs. As a HHMI investigator, Dr. Pagano intends to focus his research on refining the diagnostic signatures of F-box proteins.
HHMI Investigators are chosen through rigorous national competition in a highly selective review process. There are currently about 300 scientists who lead Hughes laboratories at 64 institutions and NYU Langone Medical Center is among them. Founded in 1953 by Howard R. Hughes, the aviator and industrialist, HHMI is one of the largest philanthropies dedicated to the betterment of human health, which it supports with research investments of close to $600 million annually.
Other distinguished NYU Langone Medical Center HHMI Investigators include Ruth Lehmann, Ph.D, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter professor of cell biology, Danny Reinberg, Ph.D, professor of biochemistry, and Dan Littman, M.D., Ph.D., the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel professor of molecular immunology and professor of pathology and microbiology.
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