Joan Massague PhD

Dr. Joan Massague, Ph.D., is a Henry R. Kravis Foundation Chair and Director of Sloan Kettering Institute at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Massague earned his Doctor of Philosophy in pharmacy and biochemistry from the University of Barcelona in 1978. In 1982, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, where he worked on mechanisms of insulin action. Later that year, he became an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Throughout his 30-year career, Dr. Massagué has been lauded for the originality and importance of his work elucidating the mechanism of action for transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling. The TGF-β family of proteins plays a key role in the proliferation and differentiation of many different cell types, controlling the formation and regeneration of tissues from embryonic life to adulthood.

Dr. Massagué identified the TGF-β receptors, their mechanism of signal transduction, and the central concept of how this pathway controls cell division and developmental fate. He provided a direct explanation for how external signals block cell division through CDK inhibitors and cell fate through chromatin regulators. These mechanisms are crucial in embryonic development, and their disruption causes congenital disorders and cancer.