Pathologist Michele Pagano Focuses Cancer Research on Proteins

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced in May that Michele Pagano, 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.  
    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, 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.  
    Other distinguished NYU Langone Medical Center HHMI Investigators include Ruth Lehmann, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology, Danny Reinberg, professor of biochemistry, and Dan Littman, the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology and professor of pathology and microbiology.