Robert T. Abraham
Co-discovered the mammalian target of rapamycin in 1995, giving it the name mTOR, and showed that it directly phosphorylates the translation repressor 4E-BP1 (PHAS-I)
Chief Scientific Officer, Engine Biosciences (since 2025) · Odyssey Therapeutics · Vividion Therapeutics · Pfizer Oncology Research · Burnham Institute · Duke University Medical Center · Mayo Clinic
Engine Biosciences (San Francisco, California, USA) ↗
Portrait: Engine Biosciences
At Mayo Clinic, isolated mTOR using a rapamycin-FKBP12 bait (SAB1995), one of several independent 1994–95 papers (alongside Schreiber's FRAP and Sabatini/Snyder's RAFT1) founding the field. In 1997 (BRU1997), showed mTOR directly phosphorylates PHAS-I (4E-BP1) — the paper behind nearly every mTOR→translation diagram.
Moved through Duke, Burnham Institute (TOR/ATM-ATR/T-cell signaling), Pfizer Oncology (San Diego), Vividion Therapeutics, now Engine Biosciences — over 30 years still working at the chemical-biology/cancer-drug-discovery interface.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | M | Isolation of a protein target of the FKBP12-rapamycin complex in mammalian cells SAB1995 Isolated mTOR via a rapamycin-FKBP12 affinity matrix, one of several independent founding papers. |
| 1997 | M | Phosphorylation of the translational repressor PHAS-I by the mammalian target of rapamycin BRU1997 Showed mTOR directly phosphorylates PHAS-I (4E-BP1), the mechanistic link to protein synthesis control. |
| 1999 | M | Regulation of 4E-BP1 phosphorylation: a novel two-step mechanism GIN1999 4E-BP1 is phosphorylated by an ordered, priming two-step mechanism that controls its release of eIF4E. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 3
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Robert T. Abraham.
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- Anne-Claude Gingras Showed in 1999 that mTOR phosphorylates 4E-BP1 in a priming two-step mechanism, and now leads work on interaction proteomics (including BioID) that maps how cells read signals such as mTORC1
- Nahum Sonenberg Co-discovered the mRNA cap-binding protein eIF4E and the 4E-BP proteins that restrain it, and showed how mTOR releases this brake to control protein synthesis
- Steven P. Gygi Mass-spectrometry scientist whose Harvard lab builds large-scale proteomics methods, including the BioPlex human protein-interaction map, and contributed proteomics to the discoveries of the CASTOR and SAMTOR nutrient sensors
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