Matthew Vander Heiden

About

Matthew Vander Heiden is the Lester Wolfe Professor of Molecular Biology and the Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. His research focuses on the role that cell metabolism plays in mammalian physiology, with a particular emphasis on cancer. He studies the biochemical pathways that cells utilize and how these pathways are regulated to meet the metabolic requirements of cells in different physiological situations. His work concentrates on understanding how metabolic pathways support cell proliferation in cancer and aims to translate this understanding into novel cancer therapies. Vander Heiden's contributions to the field have been recognized through awards such as election to the National Academy of Medicine in 2024 and being named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar in 2016.

Research topics

• Biology
• Chemistry
• Biochemistry
• Cell biology
• Genetics
• Cancer research
• Medicine
• Endocrinology
• Business
• Pathology

Selected publications

• Cell-programmed nutrient partitioning in the tumour microenvironment

  Nature · 2021 · 987 citations

  DOI

• Metabolomics in cancer research and emerging applications in clinical oncology

  CA A Cancer Journal for Clinicians · 2021-05-13 · 659 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Cancer has myriad effects on metabolism that include both rewiring of intracellular metabolism to enable cancer cells to proliferate inappropriately and adapt to the tumor microenvironment, and changes in normal tissue metabolism. With the recognition that fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography imaging is an important tool for the management of many cancers, other metabolites in biological samples have been in the spotlight for cancer diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy. Metabolomics is…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Increased demand for NAD+ relative to ATP drives aerobic glycolysis

  Molecular Cell · 2020 · 532 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• A metastasis map of human cancer cell lines

  Nature · 2020 · 450 citations

  spanning 21 types of solid tumour. We created a first-generation metastasis map (MetMap) that reveals organ-specific patterns of metastasis, enabling these patterns to be associated with clinical and genomic features. We demonstrate the utility of MetMap by investigating the molecular basis of breast cancers capable of metastasizing to the brain-a principal cause of death in patients with this type of cancer. Breast cancers capable of metastasizing to the brain showed evidence of altered lipid m…

  DOI

• Apoptotic cell death in disease—Current understanding of the NCCD 2023

  Cell Death and Differentiation · 2023 · 344 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03MH085679

  NIH · $25k · 2011

• NIH Grant R21CA198028

  NIH · $371k · 2017

• NIH Grant R01CA201276

  NIH · $3.0M · 2022

Frequent coauthors

• Lewis C. Cantley

  Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

  348 shared

• Clary B. Clish

  Harvard University

  191 shared

• Shawn M. Davidson

  Princeton University

  171 shared

• Jared R. Mayers

  Rocky Vista University

  165 shared

• Sarah‐Maria Fendt

  VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology

  142 shared

• Craig J. Thomas

  134 shared

• Gary Bellinger

  124 shared

• Caroline A. Lewis

  Guardant (United States)

  121 shared

Labs

• Vander Heiden LabPI

Awards & honors

• National Academy of Medicine, 2024
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar, 2016
• SU2C Innovative Research Grant Recipient, 2016

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Rudolf Jaenischh-295
• Robert A. Weinbergh-291
• Susumu Tonegawah-237