Xiaoju Max Ma
Cell biologist who trained with John Blenis on how mTOR and S6K1 control protein synthesis, wrote a widely used review of mTOR-driven translation, and later worked in cancer research at Genentech
Department of Research Oncology Diagnostics, Genentech (2009–2015) · John Blenis lab (papers 2008–2011)
Making protein is one of the most energy-hungry things a cell does, so cells only do it at full speed when conditions are good. mTOR is the sensor that decides. In 2009 Xiaoju Max Ma wrote, with John Blenis, a review in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (MAX2009) that explains how mTOR takes in signals about nutrients, energy, stress and growth factors and passes them on to the protein-making machinery. It covers the two best-known mTORC1 targets, S6K1 and the 4E-BP proteins that hold back the start of translation. As a review, it summarises earlier experiments rather than reporting new ones.
PubMed lists four papers under this name tied to Blenis or Genentech: a 2008 research paper and the 2009 review with Blenis, the 2011 phosphoproteomics study that identified Grb10 as an mTORC1 target (also in the Atlas), and a 2015 Science Translational Medicine paper from Genentech and AbbVie on BCL-2 family inhibitors, cancer drugs that make tumour cells more likely to die. The 2009 review gives the Department of Research Oncology Diagnostics at Genentech as the address.
No current institutional page was found, so the position shown is the one on the Atlas paper.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | R | Molecular mechanisms of mTOR-mediated translational control MAX2009 First author: wrote, with John Blenis, the review explaining how mTOR links nutrient, energy and growth signals to the control of protein synthesis. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Xiaoju Max Ma.
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- John Blenis Showed early on that rapamycin blocks S6 kinase, then worked out how mTORC1 drives cell growth through its two main translation targets, S6K1 and 4E-BP1. His lab also found, in parallel with the Sabatini lab, that mTORC1 phosphorylates Grb10, a feedback brake on insulin signalling
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