mTOR Academy · Beyond the Atlas
Free courses and lectures
The Academy teaches one thing, the mTOR pathway, from the studies in this Atlas. The free courses and talks below cover the ground around it: the cell biology it assumes, the signalling above it and the biology of ageing it feeds into. None of them is ours. Each one is here because it teaches something a lesson in the Academy leans on.
Where to start
New to biology
Four steps, about a week of evenings before the course itself.
Already studying biology
Read and watch these next to the lessons they match.
How to read the cards
Every course here can be followed for free. On edX (MITx), Coursera and FutureLearn the free track usually comes without a certificate: a verified certificate costs money, and on some courses the free access ends after a set time, so it pays to go through them in one run.
About mTOR itself
2Start here if you want the pathway itself, told by the people who found it.
LectureMichael Hall · iBiology
The Story of TOR (Target of Rapamycin)
Michael Hall found TOR in yeast in 1991. He tells the story from a soil sample taken on Easter Island to the two protein complexes that control how big cells grow. English subtitles, and the video can be downloaded.
Open →LibreTexts · Fundamentals of Biochemistry
mTOR and Nutrient Signaling
A free university textbook chapter: the two complexes, how rapamycin binds, how leucine reaches mTORC1 through sestrin and GATOR, and how energy (AMPK) and insulin (Akt and TSC2) feed in. Reads well next to lessons 02, 06 and 07.
Open →More talks on mTOR
8Eight recorded talks, from a three-minute introduction to a one-hour research lecture.
VideoDavid Sabatini · Foundation for the NIH
Dr. David Sabatini's Research on the mTOR Pathway
A three-minute introduction to the pathway from David Sabatini, who as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins co-discovered mammalian mTOR in 1994, one of three groups to report it that year. A good first thing to watch.
Open →InterviewDavid Sabatini · Modern Healthspan
mTOR in Aging, Episode 1: The Role of mTOR
An interview in plain language about what mTOR does and why it keeps coming up in research on ageing. The first part of a short series.
Open →LectureMichael Hall · Nobel Fest
mTOR signaling in growth and metabolism
A full-length lecture on how mTOR controls growth and metabolism, from the scientist who found TOR. The longer, more technical follow-up to his 25-minute iBiology talk.
Open →LectureDavid Sabatini · Koch Institute (MIT)
Signaling Pathways in Cancer Symposium: David Sabatini
A symposium talk at MIT's cancer research institute, pitched at scientists. Faster and more technical than the interview, so it works best after lessons 05 and 06.
Open →LectureDavid Sabatini · de Duve Institute
mTOR and lysosomes in growth control (3rd de Duve Lecture)
An hour-long research lecture on how mTORC1 is controlled on the surface of the lysosome, given in honour of Christian de Duve, who discovered the lysosome. Goes with lesson 05.
Open →LectureDavid Sabatini · NIH VideoCast
Regulation of growth by the mTOR pathway
Sabatini's 2013 lecture in the NIH Wednesday Afternoon series. It walks through the two mTOR complexes: mTORC1, which drives growth through S6K and is blocked by rapamycin, and mTORC2, which acts on Akt and is largely insensitive to it. Watch it next to lesson 02.
Open →LectureMichael N. Hall · Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
mTOR signaling in growth and metabolism (Sjöberg Prize Lecture)
Hall's 2022 prize lecture covers the same ground as his Nobel Fest talk in less than half the time, from the yeast TOR genes to mTOR in metabolism and liver cancer. A good choice if 85 minutes is too long.
Open →InterviewDavid Sabatini and Peter Attia · The Peter Attia Drive
Explaining mTOR and the biology behind rapamycin
A ten-minute clip from a 2023 podcast, in which Sabatini explains in plain words what mTOR does and how rapamycin acts on it. The full episode runs three hours and adds Matt Kaeberlein on rapamycin and ageing. Treat the parts about dosing in people as opinion, not evidence.
Open →The biology the lessons assume
4The cell biology and signalling that lesson 01 takes for granted.
MIT · MIT Learn (edX)
MITx 7.00x Introduction to Biology: The Secret of Life
MIT's introductory biology course, taught by Eric Lander and colleagues. It needs only secondary-school biology and chemistry and covers every term on the What you need first page, and a lot more.
Open →KAIST · Coursera
Basic Principles of Cell Signaling
How a signal travels from a receptor into the cell. The second week covers receptor tyrosine kinases and insulin signalling, the route that reaches mTORC1 through Akt, and a later week covers how cells sense oxygen and energy. mTOR is not named in the syllabus, but this is the wiring lesson 07 builds on.
Open →Barbara Imperiali · MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT 7.016 Introductory Biology, lectures 20 and 21: Cell Signaling
Two lectures from MIT's first-year biology course: receptors, second messengers and kinase cascades in the first, worked examples in the second. A shorter route into signalling than a full course.
Open →OpenStax · Rice University
Biology 2e, chapter 9: Cell Communication
A free, openly licensed textbook chapter on how cells send and receive signals, with review questions at the end. It covers the same ground as the What you need first page in more detail.
Open →Going deeper
4University courses for when a lesson leaves you wanting the full mechanism.
MIT · MIT Learn (edX)
MITx 7.05x Biochemistry: Biomolecules, Methods, and Mechanisms
Proteins, enzymes and metabolism at MIT undergraduate level, including the amino acids, sugars and lipids that mTORC1 responds to. It expects 7.00x plus introductory and organic chemistry.
Open →MIT · MIT Learn (edX)
MITx 7.06.1x Cell Biology: Transport and Signaling
Membranes, organelles and signal transduction, always with the experiment behind each idea. Useful for lesson 05, because the lysosome is where mTORC1 gets switched on. It expects 7.00x and 7.05x.
Open →MIT OpenCourseWare (7.344)
Cellular Metabolism and Cancer: Nature or Nurture?
An MIT seminar built on reading research papers about how tumour cells change their metabolism, the Warburg effect among them. mTOR is not in the syllabus by name. It suits someone who has finished the Academy and wants practice with primary literature.
Open →Alain Viel and Rachelle Gaudet · HarvardX (edX)
Principles of Biochemistry
Harvard's biochemistry course: protein structure, enzymes and the main metabolic pathways and how they are regulated. An alternative to MITx 7.05x that can be started at any time.
Open →The lysosome and autophagy
3mTORC1 is switched on at the lysosome and keeps autophagy in check. These talks cover that side of the story, the subject of lessons 05 and 09.
LectureAndrea Ballabio · de Duve Institute
The lysosome, from trash can to control center of cell metabolism (2nd de Duve Lecture)
Ballabio's lab found TFEB, the protein that switches on the genes for new lysosomes and for autophagy, and showed that mTORC1 holds it back. This lecture pairs with Sabatini's de Duve Lecture in the section above.
Open →
LectureYoshinori Ohsumi · Nobel Prize
Autophagy, an intracellular recycling system (Nobel Lecture)
The 2016 Nobel lecture on how Ohsumi found the autophagy genes in starving yeast cells. TOR comes up as the switch that keeps autophagy off when nutrients are plentiful. The written lecture is also available as a PDF.
Open →
LectureJames Hurley · Yale Genetics
Genetics Seminar Series 2020: James Hurley
A structural biologist on how the autophagy machinery starts building its double membrane, shown with protein structures and reconstitution experiments. Best after lesson 09, for someone who wants to see what the proteins downstream of mTORC1 look like.
Open →Ageing and nutrient sensing
4Where mTOR meets the biology of ageing, from general-audience courses to recorded talks by researchers in the field.
University of Groningen · FutureLearn
Why Do We Age? The Molecular Mechanisms of Ageing
Telomeres, DNA damage, epigenetics and stem cells, written for a general audience. Week five covers calorie restriction and lifespan, the nutrient-sensing side of ageing where mTOR sits.
Open →Buck Institute · Buck Academy
Introduction to the Biology of Aging
Written for non-scientists by researchers at the Buck Institute. It explains the idea that ageing links diseases as different as cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. The course page does not mention mTOR by name.
Open →
LectureMatt Kaeberlein · University of Arizona College of Pharmacy
Can a Drug Slow Aging? The Rapamycin Story
A 2026 lecture tracing how rapamycin went from a soil bacterium to lifespan studies in yeast, worms, flies, mice and dogs. Kaeberlein argues in favour of the idea, so it helps to check each claim against the evidence codes in the Atlas: most of the lifespan data come from animals.
Open →
InterviewDudley Lamming · Brain Ponderings with Mark Mattson
mTOR: How Dietary Protein and Amino Acids Affect Aging and Disease Processes
A 2025 conversation on how cells sense amino acids through mTORC1, and what Lamming's lab found when mice were fed less protein or fewer branched-chain amino acids. Most of the data discussed come from mice.
Open →Reading the evidence
4How to tell a strong study from a weak one. Useful next to lesson 10 and to the evidence codes on every study in the Atlas.
F. Perry Wilson · Yale University · Coursera
Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend is Wrong
How to read a health study: what an observational study can and cannot show, how randomised trials work, and what p-values and confidence intervals mean. The same questions the evidence codes in the Atlas ask of every study.
Open →Janet Holbrook and Lea Drye · Johns Hopkins University · Coursera
Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials
How trials are designed, randomised, masked and analysed, and how to judge a published one. Useful before reading the registered trials (RT) and human studies (H) in the Atlas.
Open →Cochrane
Evidence Essentials, modules 1 to 4
Short interactive modules on evidence-based medicine, randomised trials and systematic reviews, written for readers without a medical background. Modules 1 to 4 are the relevant ones here.
Open →iBiology · Science Communication Lab
Let's Experiment
How to design an experiment you can trust: variables, controls, sample size, bias and replication. The course platform has closed, so individual learners use the eBook and the video playlist. Goes well with the Research Challenges.
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