Kevin E. Knockenhauer
Structural biologist trained in Thomas Schwartz's MIT lab who helped solve the amino acid sensor structures of Sestrin2 and CASTOR1, and who later moved to drug discovery at Accent Therapeutics
Accent Therapeutics, Lexington, Massachusetts (papers 2023–2025) · Thomas Schwartz lab, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (papers 2015–2020)
Portrait: LinkedIn
Kevin Knockenhauer is a co-author of two structural papers in the Atlas from David Sabatini's lab, both made in collaboration with Thomas Schwartz's crystallography lab at MIT. mTORC1, the growth-control complex, switches on only when amino acids are present, and dedicated sensor proteins tell it which amino acids are there. SAX2015 solved the crystal structure of Sestrin2 holding leucine and showed the pocket, closed by a lid-like loop, that makes it a leucine sensor. SAX2016 did the same for CASTOR1 and arginine, and showed how arginine binding makes CASTOR1 let go of GATOR2, which releases the brake on mTORC1. Both are structures of purified proteins, backed by tests in cells.
Knockenhauer's PubMed record lists twelve papers with Schwartz between 2015 and 2020; the Schwartz lab works mainly on the structure of the machinery that moves molecules across the nuclear envelope, the double membrane around the nucleus. From 2023 to 2025 the papers list Accent Therapeutics in Lexington, Massachusetts, a drug discovery company. One 2023 paper, for example, describes assays and a crystal structure for the RNA helicase DHX9 as a cancer drug target. The current position is taken from these papers; no official profile was found.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | M | Structural basis for leucine sensing by the Sestrin2-mTORC1 pathway SAX2015 Co-author on the crystal structure of Sestrin2 bound to leucine, which revealed its leucine-binding pocket. |
| 2016 | M | Mechanism of arginine sensing by CASTOR1 upstream of mTORC1 SAX2016 Co-author on the structure of CASTOR1 bound to arginine, which showed how arginine releases CASTOR1 from GATOR2. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 7
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Kevin E. Knockenhauer.
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- David M. Sabatini 2 shared studies Identified mTOR (as RAFT1) in 1994. His lab then mapped much of the machinery around it: raptor and rictor at the core of mTORC1 and mTORC2, the Rag–Ragulator system that docks mTORC1 on the lysosome, and the sensors that detect leucine, arginine and SAM
- Lynne Chantranupong 2 shared studies Showed as a Sabatini-lab graduate student that the Sestrins act through GATOR2 to regulate amino-acid signalling to mTORC1. She then discovered the CASTOR proteins, the cell's arginine sensors for the pathway
- Robert A. Saxton 2 shared studies Solved, as a Sabatini-lab graduate student, the structures of the leucine sensor Sestrin2 and the arginine sensor CASTOR1, showing how each one grips its amino acid. He also co-wrote a widely cited 2017 review of mTOR signalling with David Sabatini
- Thomas U. Schwartz 2 shared studies MIT structural biologist who studies how molecules pass across the nuclear envelope, and whose crystallography lab helped solve the leucine and arginine sensor structures upstream of mTORC1
- Michael E. Pacold Radiation oncologist and chemical biologist at NYU Langone who studies the metabolism of brain tumours, and a co-author of the Sabatini lab's structure of the leucine sensor Sestrin2
- Rachel L. Wolfson Identified Sestrin2 as the direct leucine sensor of the mTORC1 pathway as a Sabatini-lab MD-PhD student. She also co-discovered KICSTOR, the complex that recruits GATOR1 to the lysosome
- Tim Wang Co-developed genome-wide CRISPR screening in human cells (reported in parallel by Feng Zhang's lab) as a graduate student with David Sabatini and Eric Lander, and contributed to studies showing that the 4E-BPs mediate mTORC1's control of translation and that CASTOR1 senses arginine
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