Remi-Martin Laberge
Biologist of cell senescence, trained in Judith Campisi's lab, who showed how mTOR drives the inflammatory signals of senescent cells and then moved to drug development against senescence at UNITY Biotechnology
UNITY Biotechnology, South San Francisco (2017–2023, most recent confirmed affiliation) · Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Judith Campisi lab (2012–2017) · Institute of Parasitology, McGill University, Montreal (Elias Georges lab)
When cells are badly damaged they can stop dividing for good and become senescent. Senescent cells release a mix of inflammatory signals, called the SASP (senescence-associated secretory phenotype), which can harm nearby tissue and even help tumours grow. In 2015, as first author of a Nature Cell Biology paper with Judith Campisi, Remi-Martin Laberge showed that mTOR drives the SASP by raising translation of IL1A, a signal near the top of this cascade. Rapamycin lowered IL1A production and the SASP, and in mice it stopped senescent cells from helping prostate tumours grow. The work used cultured human cells and mouse tumour models.
Laberge also worked at McGill University's Institute of Parasitology in Montreal with Elias Georges; a 2014 first-author paper from that group asks how cancer cells that resist many drugs through the pump P-glycoprotein become extra sensitive to steroid hormones. At the Buck Institute, Laberge moved into senescence biology. A 2012 first-author paper showed that glucocorticoid drugs suppress parts of the SASP.
Later Laberge joined UNITY Biotechnology, a company developing drugs that remove senescent cells. From there, Laberge co-authored a 2017 Nature Medicine study showing that clearing senescent cells locally in the knee slowed post-traumatic osteoarthritis in mice, and later studies on the secreted signals of stressed cells (Science, 2021) and on senescence markers in patient tissues (2023). A current position after 2023 could not be confirmed.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | M | mTOR regulates the pro-tumorigenic senescence-associated secretory phenotype by promoting IL1A translation LAB2015 First author: mTOR drives the senescence-associated secretory phenotype by promoting IL1A translation, and rapamycin blocks it. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 3
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Remi-Martin Laberge.
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- Judith Campisi Pioneer of research on cellular senescence and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP); her 2015 paper showed that mTOR drives the inflammatory SASP.
- Pankaj Kapahi Showed that reducing TOR signalling extends fruit-fly lifespan, and that the translation repressor 4E-BP is needed for dietary restriction to extend it
- Yuji Ikeno Pathologist at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San Antonio whose examinations of tissues from aged mice help ageing studies tell whether an intervention changes disease, especially cancer, late in life
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