David M. Sabatini studies nutrient sensing and growth control, particularly by the mechanistic Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. This pathway is the major nutrient-sensitive growth regulator in animals and plays a central role in physiology, metabolism, aging, and cancer. Sabatini discovered the mTOR protein kinase, and most other components of the pathway, including the mTOR-containing complexes mTORC1 and mTORC2, and established them as growth regulators in cells and in vivo. He determined that nutrients signal to mTORC1 through the lysosome-associated Rag GTPases and discovered their many regulators and associated nutrient sensors. In addition to his growth-related work, Sabatini also studies small molecule metabolism and is involved in technology development, such as in generating widely used genome-scale RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 libraries as well as organellar isolation methods. 
Sabatini was born in New York City to Argentine immigrant parents and obtained his bachelor’s degree at Brown University in 1990 and his MD/PhD at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1997. He completed his thesis work in the lab of Solomon H. Snyder, where he discovered mTOR. Sabatini has received a number of recognitions and has also been active in the clinical translation of his work by co-founding several biotechnology companies in the Boston area. He is currently a Senior Group Leader at IOCB Boston & Prague and was previously at MIT.

Seminar topic: Nutrient sensing by the mTOR pathway