Ran Kafri
Studies how mTORC1 sets and enforces a target size for cells
PhD, Weizmann Institute of Science · Senior Scientist, Cell & Systems Biology, Hospital for Sick Children · Assistant Professor, Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto · Canada Research Chair (Tier 2), Quantitative Cell Biology
Portrait: Kafri Lab, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
Ran Kafri trained at the Weizmann Institute of Science before building a lab at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto around a deceptively simple question: what decides how big a cell gets, and how does it stay that size? His group has traced cell-size homeostasis to mTORC1 activity, and asks whether shifts in a person's mTORC1 'setpoint' over a lifetime could help explain cancer risk.
The AoF method his lab co-developed — reading a signal's dynamics out of fixed-cell snapshots rather than live imaging — extends that programme into feedback control itself, and its first application already lands on mTORC1: a narrow, cell-cycle-restricted window of Akt feedback the group attributes to mTORC1/S6K1 acting on IRS1.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | M | Inferring feedback regulation from static snapshots of a single signal GIN2026 Senior author on AoF, a snapshot-based method for inferring feedback dynamics, applied here to uncover a cell-cycle-restricted Akt feedback loop plausibly traced to mTORC1/S6K1. |