Research Interests

Research Topics

Key for any living entity, such as a human cell, is the ability to contain an own environment within membranes that not only preserves the genetic material, but also allows chemical reactions to be efficient and generate energy. Management of the interface between the external world and the biochemical self occurs through the activity and regulation of membrane transporters. The Superti-Furga laboratory considers transporters ideal means to tune the metabolism of cells while representing a manifestation of a cell’s appetite for nutrients integrated over the environment’s offer.

The GSF Lab science summarized in five points:

  1. We investigate the mechanisms and the logic of how the concentration of individual metabolites, ions, nutrients is achieved, coordinated and maintained.
  2. We study the role that different concentrations of small molecules within the cell and the cellular environment play on cellular identity, homeostasis and disease.
  3. We perturb specific processes and pathways to alter metabolism and growth and thereby study their interdependence.
  4. We have a strategic focus on membrane transporters as druggable key regulators of metabolism, and on proteostasis as druggable link between growth and metabolism.
  5. It is also our ambition to foster translational research and focus on the design and discovery of small molecule drugs that alter homeostasis and on ex vivo assessment of drug action in cancer and inflammation.