Hyun Woo Park
Biochemist at Yonsei University who trained with Kun-Liang Guan on the Hippo-YAP/TAZ growth pathway and now studies how cancer cells change their signalling and metabolism to spread
Department of Biochemistry, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Yonsei University, Seoul (papers since 2020) · postdoc, Department of Pharmacology and Moores Cancer Center, UC San Diego (Kun-Liang Guan lab, papers to 2015)
Portrait: Translational Cancer Research Lab, Yonsei University
The Atlas study JEW2015 in Science, from Kun-Liang Guan's lab at UC San Diego, asked how different amino acids switch on mTORC1, the cell's growth-control complex. Leucine acted through the Rag GTPases, the usual route to the lysosome, while glutamine could activate mTORC1 in cells without Rags, through a route that needed the small GTPase Arf1. Hyun Woo Park was a co-author. The experiments were done in cultured cells.
Park's main work in the Guan lab was on the Hippo pathway and its targets YAP and TAZ, proteins that control organ size and are often overactive in cancer. As first author of a 2015 Cell paper, Park showed that the alternative Wnt signals Wnt5a/b and Wnt3a switch on YAP/TAZ through a chain of receptors, G proteins and Rho GTPases, separate from the classic beta-catenin route.
Park now runs a group in the Department of Biochemistry at Yonsei University in Seoul. Recent papers from the group, some still with Guan as co-author, describe an adherent-to-suspension transition in which solid tumour cells borrow blood-cell gene programs, switch off YAP/TEAD-driven adhesion genes and detach to become circulating tumour cells. The group has also reviewed how signalling pathways such as PI3K/AKT and Hippo rewire cancer metabolism.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | M | Metabolism. Differential regulation of mTORC1 by leucine and glutamine JEW2015 Co-author: part of the Guan-lab team that showed in cultured cells that glutamine activates mTORC1 through Arf1 without the Rag GTPases. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 3
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Hyun Woo Park.
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- Jenna L. Jewell Studies how cells sense nutrients such as amino acids to control growth and metabolism through mTORC1
- 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
- Young Chul Kim Cell biologist who studied mTOR and autophagy in Kun-Liang Guan's lab at UC San Diego and later moved to kidney research in Volker Vallon's group
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