Hijai R. Shin
Cell biologist who discovered, in Roberto Zoncu's lab at UC Berkeley, that the lysosomal protein LYCHOS senses cholesterol for mTORC1, and who now works at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern
Children's Medical Center Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (2025) · Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research, University of California, Berkeley (Zoncu lab, papers 2018–2022)
Hijai Shin was first author of a 2022 Science paper in this Atlas (SHI2022). Earlier work from the same lab had shown that cholesterol inside the lysosome switches on mTORC1, but the sensor was missing. SHI2022 identified LYCHOS, a lysosomal protein previously known only as GPR155, as a cholesterol sensor for mTORC1, the growth-control complex. Cholesterol binds one end of LYCHOS, and mutating that site weakens mTORC1 activation. When cholesterol is high, LYCHOS captures GATOR1, a complex that normally keeps mTORC1 off, and so lets mTORC1 be recruited to the surface of the lysosome, the cell's recycling compartment. The work was done in human cell lines and with purified proteins. The finding gave cholesterol its own direct line to the growth switch, alongside the sensors for amino acids.
In Zoncu's lab Shin also wrote two first-author reviews, on how galectin proteins detect and signal lysosome damage (Molecular Cell, 2018) and on the lysosome as the place where cell growth and cell breakdown meet (Developmental Cell, 2020). Shin co-authored a 2019 Nature Chemical Biology study from Daniel Nomura's lab showing that covalently targeting the lysosome's proton pump switches on autophagy by inhibiting mTORC1, and a 2021 Nature Cell Biology study on how pancreatic cancer cells protect their lysosomes from membrane stress.
By 2025 PubMed lists Shin at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute and the Department of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. From there Shin co-wrote, with Zoncu, two commentaries on new structures of LYCHOS that show where cholesterol binds. Shin's exact title in Dallas could not be confirmed.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | M | Lysosomal GPCR-like protein LYCHOS signals cholesterol sufficiency to mTORC1 SHI2022 First author: identified LYCHOS (GPR155) as the lysosomal cholesterol sensor that lets mTORC1 respond to cholesterol by capturing GATOR1. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 5
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Hijai R. Shin.
ShowHide
- Daniel K. Nomura Chemical biologist and professor at UC Berkeley who uses chemoproteomics to find druggable sites on proteins, including covalent handles that turn ordinary drug molecules into protein degraders
- Douglas F. Covey Medicinal chemist and Andrew C and Barbara B Taylor Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis who designs synthetic steroids and sterols to study neurosteroids, GABA-A receptors and cholesterol sensing, including in two Atlas studies on cholesterol and mTORC1
- Chun-Yan Lim Cell biologist who trained in Roberto Zoncu's lab at UC Berkeley on how cholesterol controls mTORC1, and now publishes as corresponding author from Guangzhou National Laboratory on lysosome signalling in immunity and nutrient sensing
- Oliver B. Davis Cell biologist who did a PhD in Roberto Zoncu's lab at UC Berkeley on how lysosomal cholesterol controls mTORC1, and first author of a 2020 study proposing NPC1-mTORC1 signalling as a drug target in Niemann-Pick type C disease
- Rushika M. Perera Professor of Anatomy at UCSF whose lab studies how autophagy and the lysosome, the cell's recycling centre, help cancer cells cope with stress, and a co-author of two Science papers on how lysosomal cholesterol switches on mTORC1
Every researcher with a profile →
Thank you. That helps us know which pages have been read by someone who knows the work.
Thank you. We will check it and correct the page.
Thank you. Your answer was counted anonymously.