Cheryl Lyn Walker
Cancer biologist and toxicologist who studies how environmental exposures reprogram the epigenome and target tumour suppressor genes; senior author of the study linking ATM to TSC2 and mTORC1 in the response to oxidative stress
Director, Center for Precision Environmental Health, Baylor College of Medicine · Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M (from 2011) · Ruth and Walter Sterling Professor of Carcinogenesis, MD Anderson Cancer Center (2009–2011) · PhD, UT Southwestern (1984) · Member, National Academy of Medicine (2016)
Center for Precision Environmental Health, Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas, USA) ↗
Cheryl Lyn Walker is the senior author of ALE2010, done at MD Anderson Cancer Center with Angela Alexander as first author and with collaborators including Kun-Liang Guan, Ken Inoki, Gordon Mills and Michael Kastan. The paper described a cytoplasmic job for ATM: in response to reactive oxygen species, ATM activates the TSC2 tumour suppressor through LKB1 and AMPK, which represses mTORC1 and induces autophagy.
Walker earned a PhD in molecular biology at UT Southwestern (1984) and an MD at Baylor College of Medicine. She held the Ruth and Walter Sterling Professorship of Carcinogenesis at MD Anderson from 2009 to 2011, then directed the Institute of Biosciences and Technology at Texas A&M, and now directs the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine. Her work centres on environmental epigenomics and animal models of gynaecological tumours.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | M | ATM signals to TSC2 in the cytoplasm to regulate mTORC1 in response to ROS ALE2010 Senior author: ATM signals to TSC2 in the cytoplasm to repress mTORC1 and induce autophagy when ROS rise. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Cheryl Lyn Walker.
- Angela Alexander First author of the study showing that the DNA-damage kinase ATM also works in the cytoplasm, where it switches on TSC2 in response to reactive oxygen species and so turns mTORC1 down
- Ken Inoki Showed as a postdoc in Kun-Liang Guan's lab that Akt switches off TSC2, that TSC2 is the off-switch (GAP) for the small GTPase Rheb, and that AMPK and GSK3 feed energy and Wnt signals into the same brake. His Michigan lab studies mTOR signalling in metabolism and kidney disease
- Kun-Liang Guan Showed how growth-factor and energy signals reach mTORC1 through TSC2 and Rheb, and, in parallel with the Sabatini lab, that the Rag GTPases carry the amino-acid signal. His lab also found that AMPK and mTORC1 control autophagy by phosphorylating the kinase ULK1 at different sites
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