Rich Possemato
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richpossemato.bsky.social
Rich Possemato
@richpossemato.bsky.social
1K followers 350 following 21 posts
Associate Professor studying cellular metabolism, iron, cancer research. 🏳️‍🌈Father of two possematolab.org
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Reposted by Rich Possemato
mito-oncogene.bsky.social
Excited to share our latest work in collaboration with the @edreznik.bsky.social lab @mskcancercenter.bsky.social, where we describe functionally dominant mitochondrial DNA mutations in patient tumors. So, what is functional dominance in mitochondrial genetics, I hear you ask?

rdcu.be/eN1jm
Functionally dominant hotspot mutations of mitochondrial ribosomal RNA genes in cancer
Nature Genetics - Analysis of 14,106 tumor genomes highlights recurrent mutations in mitochondrial ribosomal RNA encoded within the mitochondrial genome. Mutations occur at hotspot positions and...
rdcu.be
November 3, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
artemakhan.bsky.social
Excited to share our work on discovery of SLC25A45 as a mediator of mitochondrial methylated amino acid import and carnitine biosynthesis. @cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-metabol...
Machine-learning-guided discovery of SLC25A45 as a mediator of mitochondrial methylated amino acid import and carnitine synthesis
Khan et al. apply machine learning to identify substrates of UNC93A, SLC45A4, and SLC25A45. Biochemical assays and in vivo metabolite tracing establish SLC25A45 as a key mediator of mitochondrial impo...
www.cell.com
October 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
sshaolab.bsky.social
Beautiful reconstitution of amino acid stress-dependent ISR activation by my @harvardcellbio.bsky.social colleagues presenting a unifying mechanism for GCN2 activation, which requires ribosome collisions and is enhanced by cognate uncharged tRNA in the A site! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling
During nutrient deprivation, activation of the protein kinase GCN2 regulates cell survival and metabolic homeostasis. In addition to amino acid stress, GCN2 is activated by a variety of cellular stres...
www.science.org
October 3, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
tgoliver.bsky.social
Super pleased to announce our latest suggesting the cell of origin for #SCLC is most likely the basal cell @nature.com, not the accepted neuroendocrine cell. Implications for the earliest events in cancer, & providing new models of tuft-like cancer.
rdcu.be/eGUtj
Basal cell of origin resolves neuroendocrine–tuft lineage plasticity in cancer
Nature - Basal cells, rather than neuroendocrine cells, have been identified as the probable origin of small cell lung cancer and other neuroendocrine–tuft cancers, explaining...
rdcu.be
September 17, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
danwahlmd.bsky.social
New discovery from our team defining how human brain cancers rewire the metabolism of the normal brain published this week @nature.com and led by stellar postdoc Drew Scott (comentored by @lyssiotislab.bsky.social and currently on job market with a K99/R00). www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Rewiring of cortical glucose metabolism fuels human brain cancer growth - Nature
The cortex fuels essential physiological processes with glucose-derived carbon, while gliomas fuel their aggressiveness by rerouting glucose carbon pathways and scavenging alternative carbon sources s...
www.nature.com
September 6, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
walterwchen.bsky.social
Our work on new paradigm in peroxisome biogenesis and PEX39 (1st human peroxisomal biogenesis protein (peroxin/PEX) found in > 20 yr) is out in @natcellbio.nature.com! Equal collab w/Tony Rodrigues (Jorge Azevedo lab), @dwendscheck.bsky.social (Bettina Warscheid lab)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PEX39 facilitates the peroxisomal import of PTS2-containing proteins - Nature Cell Biology
Chen et al. show that PEX39 cooperates with PEX7 in the peroxisomal import of proteins containing a PTS2 site and uncover an (R/K)PWE motif in PEX39 and PEX13 that binds to PEX7 and facilitates the im...
www.nature.com
July 30, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
frezzalab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Transient APC/C inactivation by mTOR boosts glycolysis during cell cycle entry
Transient APC/C inactivation by mTOR boosts glycolysis during cell cycle entry - Nature
APC/C activity is transiently inhibited to generate a pulse of glycolysis that is required for mammalian cell cycle entry.
www.nature.com
July 30, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
rjdlab.bsky.social
1/Patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) are used in preclinical testing of cancer therapies, including metabolic therapies. We determined which metabolic properties are retained, and which are lost, when melanomas from patients are implanted and passaged as PDXs in mice.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Conservation and divergence of metabolic phenotypes between patient tumours and matched xenografts - Nature Metabolism
Rao and Cai et al. perform a detailed metabolic comparison between primary tumours from patients and their matching xenografts, which identify conserved as well as divergent metabolic patterns.
www.nature.com
July 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
barrlab.bsky.social
From @aaas.org check-in with Sudip Parikh: a letter by 14 Republican senators urge the Office of Management and Budget to release NIH funding. If this includes your state (AL, ME, WV, SC, KY, KS, AR, PA, NC, IN, AK), Sudip recommends contacting & thanking them for being American science leaders.
Director Vought: We write to ask you to fully implement the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, including funds appropriated for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The continuing resolution supp011s NIH initiatives across a range of critical research areas­cancer, cardiovascular disease, rare pediatric disorders, and more. These vital efforts are not only necessary to Make America Healthy Again, but also have a direct impact on American families, biomedical innovation, our economy, and competing with Communist China. We are concerned by the slow disbursement rate of FY25 NIH funds, as it risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports. Suspension of these appropriated funds - whether formally withheld or functionally delayed - could threaten Americans' ability to access better treatments and limit our nation's leadership in biomedical science. It also risks inadve11ently severing ongoing NIH-funded research prior to actionable results. We share your commitment to ensuring NIH funds are used responsibly and not diverted to ideological or unaccountable programs. We are confident Secretary Kennedy and Director Bhattacharya are well positioned to uphold gold standard research by ensuring that NIH awards are grounded in transparency, scientific merit, and a clear alignment with national interests. Our shared goal is to restore public trust in the NIH precisely because its work is focused on results, accountability, and real-world impact. Withholding or suspending these funds would jeopardize that trust and hinder progress on critical health challenges facing our nation. Ultimately, this is about finding cures and seeing them through to fruition. We respectfully request that you ensure the timely release of all FY25 NIH appropriations in accordance with congressional intent. Doing so will ensure continued momentum in curing disease, supp011ing American innovation, and delivering result… Sincerely, Katie Boyd Britt John Boozman Shelly Moore Capito Bill Cassidy Susan Collins Lindsey O. Graham David H. McCormick Mitch McConnel Jerry Moran Lisa Murkowski Thom Tillis Todd Young Dan Sullivan Tim Scott
July 26, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
hitenmadhani.bsky.social
Bill Rutter passed away at age 97 yesterday. He chaired our Department through the 1970s and was instrumental in the development of UCSF basic science. He hired Christine Guthrie, Keith Yamamoto, Bruce Alberts, Marc Kirschner, Pat O’Farrell, Peter Walter, Ira Herskowitz among others.
July 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
ashi-w.bsky.social
Fascinating

www.linkedin.com/posts/scienc...
In 2019, scientists discovered Jo Cameron, a Scottish woman with a rare genetic mutation that prevents her from feeling pain, anxiety, or fear and allows her to heal without scarring. | Science Acumen
In 2019, scientists discovered Jo Cameron, a Scottish woman with a rare genetic mutation that prevents her from feeling pain, anxiety, or fear and allows her to heal without scarring. This condition...
www.linkedin.com
July 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
lisonjoseph.bsky.social
Child walks again after receiving experimental treatment for rare genetic condition www.statnews.com/2025/07/09/n... via @statnews.com
Child walks again after receiving experimental treatment for rare genetic condition
NYU Langone researchers have helped an 8-year-old boy regain mobility using an experimental treatment.
www.statnews.com
July 9, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
biorxiv-cancer.bsky.social
Riboflavin drives nucleotide biosynthesis and iron-sulfur metabolism to promote acute myeloid leukemia https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.26.661633v1
June 30, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
cri-utsw.bsky.social
Today in @dallasnews.com by @sodendritic.bsky.social: "Dallas researchers find cancer’s secret weapon to defeat death" ⬇️ read more www.dallasnews.com/news/2025/06...
🧪 #relentlessdiscovery @rjdlab.bsky.social
Dallas researchers find cancer’s secret weapon to defeat death
Cancers use lipids to build a shield with vitamin E. Stripping that shield could lead to new treatments.
www.dallasnews.com
June 27, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
frezzalab.bsky.social
Uridine: Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism www.cell.com/trends/endoc...

a great not-to-miss piece from the @lyssiotislab.bsky.social
Uridine
Uridine is a pyrimidine nucleoside composed of an uracil base and a ribose sugar. In cells, uridine is predominantly present in RNA (as uridine monophosphate, UMP). Uridine can be produced through de ...
www.cell.com
June 15, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social
What an amazing time to be a biomedical scientist.

www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Stem Cell–Derived, Fully Differentiated Islets for Type 1 Diabetes | NEJM
Zimislecel is an allogeneic stem cell–derived islet-cell therapy. Data on the safety and efficacy of zimislecel in persons with type 1 diabetes are needed. We conducted a phase 1–2 study of zimisle...
www.nejm.org
June 21, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
bloodgenes.bsky.social
Wow!!! 👏👏👏 Amazing to see this develop over the years!

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/h...
People With Severe Diabetes Are Cured in Small Trial of New Drug
www.nytimes.com
June 21, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
yasesancak.bsky.social
Our paper on regulation of BCAA catabolism by mitochondrial calcium signaling is out!
Mitochondrial calcium signaling regulates branched-chain amino acid catabolism in fibrolamellar carcinoma | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Mitochondrial calcium signaling regulates branched-chain amino acid catabolism in fibrolamellar carcinoma
Mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling regulates branched-chain amino acid catabolism in an adolescent liver cancer.
www.science.org
May 31, 2025 at 6:24 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
cp-molcell.bsky.social
Ribosomes modulate transcriptome abundance via generalized frameshift and out-of-frame mRNA decay
Ribosomes modulate transcriptome abundance via generalized frameshift and out-of-frame mRNA decay
Zhang et al. identify a regulatory mechanism for how cells adapt to nutrient scarcity through widespread −1 ribosomal frameshifts, culminating in accelerated mRNA decay. This process, dependent on codon optimality and conserved across species, establishes direct feedback coupling the translation of new proteins with the stability of the mRNA that encodes for them.
dlvr.it
May 17, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
barbmarte.bsky.social
new out in Nature, very cool story www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Activation of lysosomal iron triggers ferroptosis in cancer - Nature
Some cancer cells exhibit high loads of reactive iron in lysosomes, and this feature is exploited by using fentomycin-1, a newly developed small molecule, to induce ferroptosis.
www.nature.com
May 7, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
jasonrcantor.bsky.social
excited to share our latest work now online
@natmetabolism.nature.com, led by
@kyle-flickinger.bsky.social, where we unravel a mechanistic basis for the conditional essentiality of NADK, one of the many interesting hits from our previously reported CRISPR screening with HPLM rdcu.be/ekpu6
May 2, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
phillipjwhitephd.bsky.social
The Sable Award lecture at METPHYS2025 was really remarkable!

Tremendous congratulations to this years exceptional member of our community Kivanc Birsoy
May 1, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
60minutes.bsky.social
And now, a note on Bill Owens who, until this past week, was the executive producer of 60 Minutes.

We’ll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.
April 28, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Rich Possemato
60minutes.bsky.social
The National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, has fired 1,300 employees and cancelled more than $2 billion in federal research grants. https://cbsn.ws/4daiCrv
How cuts at the National Institutes of Health could impact Americans' health
Cuts and layoffs to the National Institutes of Health threaten medical research around the U.S., agency insiders warn.
cbsn.ws
April 28, 2025 at 12:30 AM
richpossemato.bsky.social
From Nobel prize winning cancer researcher Bill Kaelin
Killing the Science Golden Goose - The American Journal of Medicine www.amjmed.com/article/S000...
Killing the Science Golden Goose
In the 1970’s I was probably one of the last American high school students who was told that if you wanted to go to medical school, you should learn to speak German. This was because in the late 19th ...
www.amjmed.com
April 18, 2025 at 10:54 AM