Alex Zaufel
Researcher studying bile acid metabolism and mTORC1 signaling in liver disease
Researcher, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Medical University of Graz, Austria
Alex Zaufel works in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Medical University of Graz, where his research centers on bile acid metabolism and signaling — including how bile acid composition and stereochemistry intersect with nuclear receptor signaling (FXR) and, in his most recent work, with mTORC1 nutrient sensing.
First author of a 2026 Science Advances study identifying an mTORC1-TFEB/TFE3 signaling axis that reshapes hepatic bile acid metabolism during metabolic adaptation, with reversal by rapamycin and dietary protein restriction, and correlation to metabolic outcomes in human MASLD patients.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | A | mTORC1-TFEB/TFE3 signaling is associated with bile acid diversification during hepatic metabolic adaptation ZAU2026 First author: identifies an mTORC1-TFEB/TFE3 signaling axis controlling hepatic bile-acid diversification, reversible by rapamycin and protein restriction. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Alex Zaufel.
- Andrea Ballabio Discovered that the transcription factor TFEB is a master switch for building lysosomes and for autophagy. His lab was one of the groups that showed in 2012 that mTORC1 keeps TFEB out of the nucleus from the lysosome surface, and later (2020) that constitutive TFEB activation drives the kidney disease of Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome
- Tarek Moustafa Researcher in hepatic metabolism and bile acid signaling