Markus H. Heim
Basel hepatologist who studies how the liver responds to viral infection and how liver cancer develops, and a co-author of the study linking mTORC2 to fat synthesis in liver tumours
Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, and Clarunis, Basel (recent papers) · Department of Biomedicine, University Hospital Basel (at the time of the 2017 study)
Portrait: Clarunis, University Digestive Health Care Center Basel
Markus Heim is a co-author of GUR2017, a Cancer Cell paper led by Michael Hall's group at the Biozentrum in Basel. The team used a mouse model in which overactive mTOR signalling in the liver causes fatty liver that later turns into liver cancer. They found that mTORC2, the second mTOR complex, drives the cell's own production of fatty acids and of sphingolipids, a class of membrane fats. Blocking the making of fatty acids or sphingolipids prevented tumours in these mice. In tissue from people with liver cancer, higher lipid synthesis went along with higher mTORC2 activity, which links the mouse result to human tumours, though only as an association.
Heim's contribution came from the clinical and liver biology side in Basel. PubMed lists close to sixty papers under this name with a Basel affiliation on interferon or hepatitis C, the line of work on how the liver's antiviral interferon system responds to hepatitis viruses, and a similar number on hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common liver cancer. Recent papers, up to 2026, also list Clarunis, a university centre for digestive and liver diseases in Basel.
No official profile page could be opened, so title and training are not given here. Other Atlas records under this name carry no affiliation in PubMed and were not counted.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | A | mTORC2 Promotes Tumorigenesis via Lipid Synthesis GUR2017 Co-author on the Basel study showing that mTORC2 drives fatty acid and sphingolipid synthesis to promote liver cancer in mice, with a matching pattern in human tumours. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 4
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Markus H. Heim.
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- Michael N. Hall Discovered TOR in yeast in 1991 and established it as a central controller of cell growth that responds to nutrients. His lab later showed that TOR works in two distinct complexes, TORC1 and TORC2, only one of which is blocked by rapamycin
- Paul Jenoe Protein chemist who ran mass spectrometry and protein sequencing at the Biozentrum Basel for decades and contributed protein analysis to many mTOR studies from Michael Hall's lab
- Suzette Moes Protein scientist at the Biozentrum Basel's proteomics facility who, with Paul Jenö, carried out mass spectrometry for many mTOR studies from Michael Hall's lab
- Yakir Guri Showed mTORC2 drives liver cancer by rewiring lipid and sphingolipid synthesis
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