Nathanael S. Gray
Developed the first ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitors used to probe rapamycin-resistant signalling
PhD, UC Berkeley · Krishnan-Shah Family Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology, Stanford University · previously Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School
Portrait: Gray Lab, Stanford University
Nathanael Gray is a chemical biologist whose lab designs small-molecule kinase inhibitors and, through long-running collaborations with mTOR biologists including David Sabatini's group, supplied some of the field's key chemical tools.
His lab developed the first ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitors, which block both mTORC1 and mTORC2 far more completely than rapamycin does. These inhibitors revealed a whole set of rapamycin-resistant mTOR functions — particularly in translation control — that catalytic-site inhibitors, but not rapamycin, could shut down, reshaping how the field defines 'full' mTOR inhibition.
The timeline below follows Gray's contributions gathered in this Atlas.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | M | An ATP-competitive mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor reveals rapamycin-resistant functions of mTORC1 THO2009 Co-develops an ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitor and shows it reveals rapamycin-resistant functions of mTORC1. |
| 2009 | M | DEPTOR is an mTOR inhibitor frequently overexpressed in multiple myeloma cells and required for their survival PET2009 Co-authors the discovery of DEPTOR, an mTOR inhibitor overexpressed in multiple myeloma and required for myeloma-cell survival. |
| 2012 | M | A unifying model for mTORC1-mediated regulation of mRNA translation THO2012 Co-authors a unifying model for how mTORC1 regulates mRNA translation. |