Dr. Nahum Sonenberg has been a professor at McGill University in the Department of
Biochemistry and the
Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre since 2002.
Dr. Sonenberg’s primary research interests are
in the field of translational control in health and disease. He studies the molecular basis of the control
of
protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells and its importance in diseases such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, and
neurological diseases.
Notably, in 1978, he identified the mRNA 5’ cap-binding protein, eIF4E, the
rate-limiting component of the eukaryotic translation apparatus. He later discovered the Internal Ribosome
Entry Site (IRES) mechanism of translation initiation in eukaryotes, and the regulation of cap-dependent
translation by eIF4E-binding proteins (4E-BPs). He also discovered that eIF4E is a proto- oncogene, whose
levels are elevated in tumours. Subsequently, he showed that rapamycin (an anti-cancer drug that suppresses
mTOR) inhibits eIF4E activity. While generating eIF4E binding protein knock-out mice, he discovered that the
protein plays important roles in metabolism, learning and memory, and innate immunity. More recently he
showed
that eIF4E is implicated in autism and Fragile-X Syndrome as well as in the function of the circadian clock.
Dr. Sonenberg has been elected to several prestigious societies. He was elected as a fellow of
the Royal
Society of Canada in 1992, he is a senior international research scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute, and he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010. He was elected to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and The Royal Society of London in 2006. He is a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science since 2012, he was elected as an Associate Member of the EMBO in
2013, and in 2015, he was elected Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences and International
Member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA).
Dr. Sonenberg has received numerous awards in recognition of
his leadership in biomedical research including the 2002 Robert L. Noble Prize from the National Cancer
Institute of Canada, the 2005 Killam Prize for Health Sciences, and the 2008 Gairdner International Award.
He
received the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2008 for his contributions to medical science, he
was
awarded the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Health Researcher of the Year Award in Biomedical and
Clinical Research in 2009, and he received the 2012 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in
Basic
Medical Science. Dr. Sonenberg received the 2013 McLaughlin Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, the 2014
Wolf Prize in Medicine, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Laval in 2016. In 2018 he was
awarded
the Prix Du Quebec Wilder-Penfield Prize from the Government of Quebec, Canada.
Currently, Dr. Sonenberg has
expanded his research into topics such as the roles of translation in neurobiology and synaptic plasticity.
Presently, his lab works on translational control in cancer, oncolytic viruses as anti-cancer drugs,
microRNA
control of translation, learning and memory, and translational control of plasticity.