Leslie J. Saucedo
Fruit-fly cell biologist and teacher who, as a postdoc in Bruce Edgar's lab, showed that the small GTPase Rheb drives cell growth in the insulin/TOR pathway
Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, Pacific Lutheran University · Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Puget Sound (faculty 2003–2024) · Postdoc and research affiliate, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (1999–2006) · PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999)
Department of Biology, Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Washington, USA) ↗
Leslie Saucedo is first author of a 2003 paper from Bruce Edgar's lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle (SAU2003). Working in the fruit fly Drosophila, the team found that Rheb, a small switch protein of the GTPase family, makes cells grow bigger when it is overactive and smaller when it is missing. Genetic tests placed Rheb in the insulin/TOR network, the system that tells cells whether there is enough food and growth signal to build more protein. The same year other groups showed that the tumour suppressors TSC1 and TSC2 act by switching Rheb off, so Rheb became the direct link between growth signals and TOR. This was work in flies; the human version of the pathway was confirmed later by others.
Saucedo trained in microbiology at the University of Illinois and earned a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999, studying the MDM2 cancer gene and the cell's response to UV damage. Postdoctoral work at the Fred Hutchinson Center from 1999 to 2003, and a research affiliate post there until 2006, focused on finding new genes that control cell growth in flies.
In 2003 Saucedo joined the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, rising from visiting assistant professor to full professor (2015) and becoming emeritus in 2024. Research there, much of it with undergraduates, used flies to study how the phosphatase PRL-1, the Src and Ras cancer genes, redox balance and autophagy affect growth. Saucedo now teaches as a visiting assistant professor in biology at Pacific Lutheran University.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | M | Rheb promotes cell growth as a component of the insulin/TOR signalling network SAU2003 First author: showed in Drosophila that Rheb promotes cell growth as part of the insulin/TOR signalling network. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Leslie J. Saucedo.
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- Bruce A. Edgar A Drosophila geneticist who studies how cells and tissues control their growth, including the role of Rheb in the insulin/TOR network.
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