The Ubiquitin and Ub-like Proteins Conference: Cell Functions and Therapeutic Targeting

Dr. Pagano is the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and the May Ellen and Gerald Jay Ritter Professor of Oncology at the New York University School of Medicine. Since 2008, he’s has also been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Pagano’s research focuses on the ubiquitylating enzymes that control cell proliferation and how deregulation of these machineries contribute to malignant transformation. His long-term goal is to help develop new anticancer therapies. His laboratory is working towards the identification of small molecule glues able to promote the proteolysis of untargetable oncoproteins. 

Pagano received his doctorate in Medicine and a specialty diploma in Molecular Endocrinology in 1990 from the Federico II University in his native Napoli, Italy. He was subsequently a post-doctoral fellow at EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany (1990-92) and at Mitotix Inc., a biotech company that he cofounded and that pioneered the concept of CDK inhibitors as anti-cancer agents (1992-96). He joined the NYU School of Medicine in September 1996 and was tenured in 2003. 

Dr. Pagano is the recipient of many prestigious grants including a MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute (2006-2017) and a NIGMS MIRA Award (2020-2025) in recognition of his outstanding achievements in cell and cancer biology. He has published more than 200 leading papers, has been issued seven patents, and has been invited to present more than 200 seminars at conferences, universities, and research institutions in the USA and abroad.

Kylie Walters is a Senior Investigator and Section Chief at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Her laboratory merges structural, chemical, and cellular biology approaches to define the mechanisms of regulated protein degradation, ubiquitin signaling, and protein quality control. Together with her collaborators and team members, she has made discoveries that have defined how the proteasome interacts with ubiquitinated substrates and ubiquitination machinery. These findings have led to new therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment. 

Walters began training in the field of biophysics as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. She obtained a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University under the supervision of Gerhard Wagner, PhD, followed by an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Peter Howley in the Pathology Department at Harvard Medical School. Walters began her independent career at the University of Minnesota where she was awarded an American Cancer Society Research Scholarship. She then moved her group to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Senior Investigator. 

At the NCI, Walters has served in positions to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including as an NIH Women Science Advisor Committee Member, and received the NCI Director’s Award for NCI Champions – Leading Diversity.

Joazeiro is a Professor at ZMBH, Heidelberg University, Germany, and maintains a secondary affiliation with Scripps Florida. Work from his laboratory in the past 10 years has defined a novel E3 ligase-mediated pathway of protein quality control that is elicited by the stalling of ribosomes during translation and is implicated in neurodegeneration, known as Ribosome-associated Quality Control (RQC).

Joazeiro studied Biological Sciences (B.S.) and Biochemistry (M.S.) at the University of São Paulo, Brazil (1990), and received his PhD in Biology at the University of California, San Diego (1996). He conducted postdoctoral research with Tony Hunter at Salk (1997-2000), studying the negative regulation of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling by the RING domain protein, c-Cbl. That work led to the discovery that the RING domain mediates E3 ligase activity and, with that, the discovery of the largest family of E3 ligases. From 2000-2006 he was a Principal Investigator at the Genomics Institute of Novartis (GNF), in San Diego. At that time, he found (along with other laboratories) the first ubiquitin-binding protein modules, namely the PUBH motif (now known as UIM) and the CUE domain. At GNF he also annotated the human genome for predicted E3 ligase-encoding genes, revealing the presence of more than 650 E3 ligases in humans and generating an inventory that has enabled his laboratory and others to design experimental strategies aimed at simultaneously addressing the function of the entire E3 ligase family—e.g., through CRISPRi screens. In 2007, Joazeiro became Assistant Professor at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and in 2016 he became Professor at the Heidelberg University while maintaining a secondary affiliation with Scripps Florida.