Michele Pagano is an Italian-American biochemist and cancer biologist. He is best known for his work on cell cycle control and the ubiquitin-proteasome system. He is currently the chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and the Ellen and Gerald Ritter Professor of Oncology at the New York University School of Medicine. He is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His laboratory has played a central role in understanding the role of a family of enzymes, the cullin-RING ubiquitin ligases (CRLs), in breaking down key proteins in cells. His work has shown how CRLs control cell cycle progression, signal transduction pathways, and the DNA damage response. His research has also revealed how problems with CRLs lead to cancer and the spread of cancer, leading to new treatments.

Biography

In 1990, Pagano received his MD and a specialized certificate in molecular endocrinology from the University of Naples Federico II. At this university, he first performed basic research on the estrogen receptor. After finishing his medical training, he moved to the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany, and later to Mitotix Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mitotix Inc. was a pharmaceutical startup that Pagano co-founded, and it helped develop the idea of CDK inhibitors as cancer treatments. At Mitotix, he completed his postdoctoral research under the guidance of Giulio Draetta. During his time as a postdoctoral fellow, Pagano first explained how cyclins and CDKs are important for DNA replication. He then described how the ubiquitin system helps control the amounts of CDK inhibitors in cells. In 1996, after completing his postdoctoral work, Pagano joined New York University School of Medicine as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1999, received tenure in 2003, and became a full professor in 2005. In 2015, he was named chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. Pagano is also a co-founder of Mitotix Inc. and SEED Therapeutics. Mitotix Inc. was a pioneer in developing CDK inhibitors as cancer treatments and was later bought by GPC Biotech. SEED Therapeutics focuses on targeted protein degradation technologies, such as PROTACs and Molecular Glues. It was founded with Dr. Ning Zheng from the University of Washington and Dr. Avram Hershko from the Technion Institute of Technology.

Honors and service

Since 1997, Pagano's laboratory has been supported without interruption by the National Institute of Health. In 2008, he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He also received other grants and awards, including an NCI MERIT Award (2006-2017) and an NIGMS MIRA Award (2020-2030), which recognized his work in cell and cancer biology. He is a member of the advisory boards for several pharmaceutical companies and foundations, and he serves on the editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals in molecular oncology, cell biology, and cell signaling. Pagano has written over 200 peer-reviewed papers and holds 7 patents. He has trained many predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows, most of whom have achieved successful independent careers in academia (e.g., UPENN, Columbia University, Weill Cornell, Boston Children's Hospital, University of Illinois College of Medicine, NYU, University of Oxford, Technical University of Munich, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Verona, and University of Tokushima) or in the pharmaceutical industry. Pagano's laboratory has always welcomed individuals from around the world for training and collaborative projects. Notable visiting scientists include Nobel laureate Avram Hershko, who spent seven summer sabbaticals in his laboratory and co-authored 10 papers with Pagano, and Yosef Shiloh, known for discovering the checkpoint kinase ATM, who spent a sabbatical year in his lab.