Cancer Biology & Genetics Program
The Joan Massagué Lab
Research

We are interested in metastasis, the cause of 90% of cancer deaths. The lab investigates metastatic stem cells and their stromal niches. The role of immune regulatory and regenerative signals, particularly TGF-β, is of interest. General as well as organ-specific mediators of metastasis are under investigation. We are defining the phenotypic plasticity and evolution of metastatic cell populations from dormancy to outbreak, identifying drug targets, and enabling clinical trials to treat metastasis.
Inside My Lab: Joan Massagué
Featured News
Publications
Laughney, A.M., Hu, J., Campbell, N.R., Bakhoum, S.F.,Setty, M., Lavallée, V.-P., Xie, Y., Masilonis, I., Carr, A.J., Allaj, V., Mattar, M., Rekhtman, N., Xavier, J., Mazutis, L., Poirier, J.T., Rudin, C.M., Pe’er, D. and Massagué, J. Regenerative lineages and immune-mediated pruning in lung cancer metastasis. Nature Medicine 26, 259-269 (2020)
Su, J., M. Morgani, S.M., David, C.J., Wang, Q., Emrah Er, E.E., Huang, Y.-H., Basnet, H., Zou, Y., Shu, W., Hendrickson, R.C., Soni, R.K., Hadjantonakis, A.-K. and Massagué, J. TGF-β orchestrates fibrogenic and developmental EMTs via RAS effector RREB1. Nature 577, 566–571 (2020)
People

Joan Massagué, PhD
Member, Cancer Biology & Genetics Program; Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Foundation Chair; Director, Sloan Kettering Institute
- Joan Massagué studies the control of stem cell growth and phenotype in tumor progression, metastasis, and response to therapy.
- PhD, University of Barcelona
- [email protected]
- Email Address
- 646-888-2044
- Office Phone
Members



- BS, Bilkent Universitesi


- BS, Peking University (Physics)
- PhD, Harvard University (Systems Biology)


Research Associate

Senior Research Assistant

Research Associate

Graduate Student

Senior Research Assistant

Research Scholar

SKI, Admin. Assistant I

Research Fellow

Sr. Research Technician

Research Scholar

Research Scholar

Postdoctoral Scholar

Research Technician

Sr. Executive Assistant
Research Scholar


- 646-888-2063
- Lab Phone

- BS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Ohio State University
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- U. Med Sciences Beijing
- Roswell Park Cancer Institute, NY

- University of Barcelona
- Rockefeller/Cornell/Sloan Kettering
- Rockefeller University
- University of Turku, Finland
- University of Rome
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- Duke University
- Cornell University, Ithaca
- University of Helsinki, Finland

- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- Rockefeller/Cornell/Sloan Kettering

- Wesleyan University
- University of Texas, Austin
- 646-888-2521
- Lab Phone
- University of Chicago
- University of Rochester
- Medical University of Graz, Austria
- ISREC
- Rockefeller Cornell/Sloan Kettering
- 1987, University of Santiago, Spain
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- Uppsala University
- University of Barcelona
- University of Barcelona, Spain

- McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
- Harvard Medical School
- Institute of Neuroscience, Alicante, Spain
- University of Helsinki, Finland
- Cornell/Sloan Kettering Graduate School
- University of York
- University of Toronto
- New York University, New York
- London Research Institute
- Columbia University, New York

- Tsinghua University
Lab Alumni

Medical Student Mount Sinai

Assistant Professor- University of Illinois, Chicago

Assistant Member, Molecular Pharmacology Program, SKI; Department of Medicine

Medical Student, Stanford, CA

Clinical Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Group Leader, Accutar Biotech

Research Investigator @ Biomarker Discovery, Beijing, China

Assistant Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Assistant Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, Columbia University
Assistant Professor, Yale University

Neuro-Oncologist / MSK HOPP Program
Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Associate Professor, Yale University
Assistant Professor, The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA

Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Member, Institut de Recerca Biomedica, Barcelona
Senior Clinical Research Associate at Veracyte, Inc.
Assistant Professor, U. North Carolina
Professor, Cardiovascular Research Institute, UCSF
Chief Scientific Officer at Accutar Biotec
Professor & Chair, Dept Biochemistry, U. Turku, Finland
Professor of Pathology, Columbia University
Scientist II, Biology at BluePrint Medicines
Postdoctoral Fellow, Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard
Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
Assistant Professor, KAIST, Korea
Professor of Radiation Oncol, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Research Technician

Assistant Professor, Cornell University
Patent Attorney, Novartis
Associate Professor of Medicine, UCLA
University of Oviedo, Spain

Student, St. Joseph's Seminary, Washington
Assistant Professor of Pathology, UT Southwestern Med, Dallas
Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, U. Pennsylvania
Associate Professor of Pathology, Yale University
Group Leader, (IMP) Institute of Molecular Pathology, Austria
Group Leader, German Cancer Research Center
Assistant Professor, UCLA
Professor, CSIC, Salamanca
Professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University
Professor of Cancer Research, Lund University, Sweden
Program Leader, University of Dundee, UK
Research Director, Vall Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona

Student, Stony Brook University
Assoc. Professor of Biochemistry & Medicine, McGill University
Professor, Rockefeller University, New York
Staff Scientist, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.
Group Leader, CNIO, Madrid
Program Leader, Medical Research Council (MRC), U. Cambridge
Associate Laboratory Member, Research Facilities @ MSKCC
Assoc. Professor of Biochemistry, University of Virginia
Senior Investigator, Lunenfeld Research Institute, U. Toronto
Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing
Chief Editor, Nature Cancer @ Nature Publishing
Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston

Postdoctoral Fellow, Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard
Lab Affilations
Achievements
- Director, Sloan Kettering Institute (2014–)
- HHMI Scientific Review Board (2014–)
- HHMI Investigator (1990-2013)
- Fellow, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Academy (2016)
- Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research (2016)
Read more
- Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research (2015)
- National Prize for Research in Biology, Spain (2014)
- American Italian Cancer Foundation Price (2013)
- Prize in Cancer Research, Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation (2011)
- Frontiers Prize in Biomedicine, BBVA Foundation (2008)
- Vilcek Prize, Vilcek Foundation (2006)
- Member, Institute of Medicine (2006)
- Award in Science and Technology, Prince Asturius Foundation (2004)
- Member, National Academy of Sciences (2000)
- Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999)
- Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1990)
- Elucidation of the TGF-beta pathway
Lab News & Events
Accolades
Team Recognitions
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Welcome: Sayyed Hamed Shahoei who joined in November from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Congratulations : Lin Tian who departed in November as research investigator at the division of Biomarker Discovery, Shanghai China
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Welcome to the Massague Lab: Lila Peters arrived in July from the University of Michigan
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Congratulations: George Lampe departed in July to Graduate School at Columbia University.
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Welcome to the Massague Lab: Jun Ho Lee joined in May from UNIST, Uslan, Republic of Korea
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Welcome to the Massague Lab: Jin Suk Park joined in March from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

In June 2019, we bid a farewell to one of our Research Techs, Jessica Hampton. Jessica will be leaving to attend Med school at Stanford University. The Massague Lab wishes her well in all of her future endeavors

March 2019 - Paper Published. During metastasis, cancer cells spread to distant organs where they divide to form microscopic clusters, or micrometastases, that can grow into new tumors. Identification of genes activated in micrometastases can reveal therapeutic targets that can kill cancer cells before they grow into larger tumors that are harder to treat.
Open Positions
Get in Touch
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Lab Head Email
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Office Phone
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Lab Phone
Disclosures
Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.
MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.
Joan Massagué discloses the following relationships and financial interests:
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Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM)
Provision of Services -
Institute Research Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain
Provision of Services
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Scholar Rock
Ownership / Equity Interests; Provision of Services -
”la Caixa” Foundation
Provision of Services
The information published here is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.
This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2019 through disclosure submission in spring 2020). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.
Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].