Noriko Oshiro-Rapley
Identified PRAS40 as a raptor-bound mTORC1 substrate that gates access to mTORC1's other substrates
Researcher, Kobe University (Kazuyoshi Yonezawa lab) · Research staff, MGH/Harvard (Joseph Avruch lab) · Postdoc, Soukas lab, MGH & Broad Institute · Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School – Xavier lab, MGH/Broad, until her death in January 2026
Xavier Lab, MGH Center for Computational & Integrative Biology / Broad Institute ↗
In Yonezawa's lab, Oshiro identified PRAS40 (OSH2007) as a genuine mTORC1 substrate that competes with S6K1/4E-BP1 for raptor binding.
Career crossed to Boston: Avruch lab (2013, Rag GTPase paper, published as Oshiro-Rapley), then Alexander Soukas's lab studying aging in C. elegans (2016 Cell paper on metformin/mTORC1/lifespan), then immunology/IBD in Ramnik Xavier's lab, rising to Instructor in Medicine at Harvard.
Dr. Oshiro-Rapley died on January 25, 2026, at age 51, after being struck by a snowplow vehicle while walking through a parking lot in Norwood, Massachusetts; at the time she was an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an investigator at the Mass General Research Institute.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | M | Raptor, a binding partner of target of rapamycin (TOR), mediates TOR action HARA2002 Oshiro's lab (Yonezawa's) co-authored the founding Raptor paper. |
| 2007 | M | The proline-rich Akt substrate of 40 kDa (PRAS40) is a physiological substrate of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 OSH2007 PRAS40 is a raptor-bound, physiological mTORC1 substrate/inhibitor. |