Michael B. Yaffe

About

Michael B. Yaffe is the David H. Koch Professor in Science and Biological Engineering at MIT, where he also serves as the Director of the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine and is an intramural faculty member at the Koch Institute. His research focuses on understanding how signaling pathways are integrated at the molecular and systems levels to control cellular responses. His main areas of investigation include signaling pathways and networks that regulate cell cycle progression and DNA damage responses in cancer and cancer therapy, as well as the cross-talk between inflammation, cytokine signaling, and cancer. Much of his work emphasizes how modular protein domains and kinases collaborate to build molecular signaling circuits, with the goal of applying this knowledge to design synergistic drug combinations for personalized treatment of human diseases.

Research topics

• Biology
• Biochemistry
• Computational biology
• Cell biology
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• An atlas of substrate specificities for the human serine/threonine kinome

  Nature · 2023 · 685 citations

  . Here we used synthetic peptide libraries to profile the substrate sequence specificity of 303 Ser/Thr kinases, comprising more than 84% of those predicted to be active in humans. Viewed in its entirety, the substrate specificity of the kinome was substantially more diverse than expected and was driven extensively by negative selectivity. We used our kinome-wide dataset to computationally annotate and identify the kinases capable of phosphorylating every reported phosphorylation site in the hum…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) treatment for COVID‐19 associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS): A case series

  Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis · 2020-04-08 · 560 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A haem-sequestering plant peptide promotes iron uptake in symbiotic bacteria

  Nature Microbiology · 2022 · 67 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• MAPKAP Kinase 2 Orchestrates Memory T Cell Inflation in Cytomegalovirus Infection

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-01-20

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Memory T cell inflation is a distinctive immunological phenomenon observed during persistent viral infections, such as Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Unlike conventional memory T cell responses, which contract after infection resolution, a subset of CMV-specific T cells undergoes a progressive and sustained expansion, termed “inflation”, which is thought to be critical for long-term immune surveillance. The molecular mechanisms that govern memory T cell inflation remain incompletely understood,…

  PublisherDOI

• Abstract 1547: IDH1-R132H enhances oncolytic HSV-1 therapy by facilitating viral entry and immune activation in glioma

  Cancer Research · 2026-04-03

  article

  Abstract Oncolytic virotherapy represents a promising yet under-explored therapeutic avenue for precision cancer treatment, particularly when tailored to tumor-specific molecular alterations. Patients with high-grade IDH-mutant astrocytomas continue to face limited treatment options and poor outcomes, emphasizing the need for novel strategies. In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic potential of rQNestin34.5v.2, an engineered oncolytic HSV-1, in the context of IDH1-R132H-mutant high-grade di…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21CA109661

  NIH · $284k · 2007

• Modeling human phosphorylation networks through kinome-wide profiling

  NIH · $2.4M · 2013–2018

• RNA-Binding Proteins as Molecular Integrators that Control the Response of HGSOC to Ant-Cancer Therapies

  NIH · $2.7M · 2018–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Christopher D. Barrett

  318 shared

• Ernest E. Moore

  University of Colorado Denver

  199 shared

• Brian A. Joughin

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  180 shared

• Hunter B. Moore

  University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

  162 shared

• Carl J. Hauser

  Harvard University

  141 shared

• Brahm H. Segal

  University at Buffalo, State University of New York

  141 shared

• Leo E. Otterbein

  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  141 shared

• Tiffany R. Emmons

  Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

  132 shared

Awards & honors

• MacVicar Faculty Fellow, 2021
• Fellow, Association of American Physicians, 2021
• Teaching with Digital Technology Award, 2018

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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