by Thaddeus Flint
Former Berlin resident Ruben Shaw has been named the new director of the Salk Center’s National Cancer Institute in La Jolla, California. Shaw was Valedictorian of the Class of 1989 at Berlin Central High School.
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The Salk Center was the creation of Jonas Salk, developer of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. The Cancer Institute at Salk was established in 1970 to uncover the fundamental aspects of cancer biology.
Shaw’s research focuses on cancer metabolism: how metabolic pathways are altered in cancer and play a role in the origins and progression of the disease. While investigating one of the most commonly mutated genes in lung cancer, Shaw discovered an energy-sensing pathway that shuts down cell growth and reprograms metabolism when nutrients are scarce. This energy-sensing pathway had been previously studied as the target of the most widely prescribed type 2 diabetes medications worldwide (metformin), suggesting a very unexpected and very direct link between metabolic pathways and cancer.
His lab went on to molecularly decode a number of new components of this metabolic pathway, which connects nutrition and exercise to suppression in both cancer and diabetes. From this work, the lab’s studies have led to the discovery of new therapies for both cancer and type 2 diabetes.
“Salk’s Cancer Center has enabled important advances in cancer research, from decoding fundamental cell processes that go awry in cancer all the way through developing promising treatments, many of which have entered into clinical trials in the past few years,” said Shaw. “Through the center, we will leverage the Institute’s close-knit interdisciplinary approach to push the boundaries of cancer research and find powerful new therapies.”[/private]