
Cancer Biology & Genetics Program
The Joan Massagué Lab
Research

Professor
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 R. Kravis Foundation Chair; Director, Sloan Kettering Institute
Professor
- Joan Massagué studies the control of stem cell growth and phenotype in tumor progression, metastasis, and response to therapy.
- PhD, University of Barcelona
- j-massague@ski.mskcc.org
- Email Address
- 646-888-2044
- Office Phone
Members
- BS, Bilkent Universitesi
- BS, Peking University (Physics)
- PhD, Harvard University (Systems Biology)

Senior Research Assistant

Sr. Research Scientist

GSK, Graduate Student

Sr. Research Scientist

SKI, Admin. Assistant II

Postdoctoral Researcher

Research Assistant

Research Fellow

Research Scholar

Research Scholar

Research Technician

Sr. Executive Assistant

Research Scholar

Research Associate

Tri-I PhD, CBM, Graduate Student
- 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, Tsinghua University, Beijing

Assistant Professor- University of Illinois, Chicago

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

Medical Student, Stanford, CA

Internal Medicine Resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Senior Research Assistant

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
Supervisory Patent Examiner, US Patent & Trademark Office

Director of Preclinal Research, Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, BCN

Chair, Biochemistry, University of Toronto
Director Veterinary Clinical Biochemistry, University of Barcelona

Associate Professor, SUNY Downstate Medical Center

Neuro-Oncologist / MSK HOPP Program

Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University

Associate Professor, Yale University
Volunteer and Research Assistant, University of Arizona
Counselor of Citizens in the District, Barcelona Spain
Principle Scientist, Eli Lilly and Company, New York

EVP, Director of Medical and Scientific Affairs at DDB Health
Professor, University of Toronta

Senior Director, ArQule Inc.

Assistant Professor, The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA

Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing

Associate Professor; Chief Integration Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Smilow Cancer Network, Yale
Staff Scientist, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY

Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Consultant in Immuno-oncology

Associate Director, Clinical Biomarkers, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Member, Pediatric Oncology & Hematology, Columbia University

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
Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Scientist II, Biology at BluePrint Medicines

Head, Tumor Immunotherapy, Seres Therapeutics

Assistant Professor, Westlake University, China

Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Assistant Professor, KAIST, Korea

Head of Intellectual Property, Molecular Partners AG; Switzerland

Professor of Radiation Oncol, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Graduate Student @ Columbia University

Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Patent Attorney, Novartis

Research Technician

Assoc. Professor of Mol. Cell. Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center

Research Scholar

Associate Member, Rutgers Cancer Institute, NJ

Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston

Professor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

University of Oviedo, Spain

Senior Medical Director at AbbVie, Chicago

Student, St. Joseph's Seminary, Washington

Assistant Professor of Pathology, UT Southwestern Med, Dallas

EVP, Director of Medical & Scientific Services at Chameleon Communications International

Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, U. Pennsylvania

Biocat Director of Healthcare Programs

Associate Professor of Pathology, Yale University

Group Leader, (IMP) Institute of Molecular Pathology, Austria
Corporate Officer, VP Business Dev.& Licensing, Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd, Tokyo

Group Leader, German Cancer Research Center

Assistant Professor, UCLA

Professor, CSIC, Salamanca

Director, Wake Forest School of Medicine

Professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University

Research Director, CNRS and Institute Curie, Paris
Management, Integrated Bioscience Solutions, LLC

Principal Investigator, Landspitali University Hospital; University of Iceland

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

Partner at Carter, DeLuca, Farrell & Schmidt, LLP

Professor, Rockefeller University, New York
Professor, Consejo Superior de Investigactiones Cientificas, Madrid

Staff Scientist, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.

Associate Professor, Dept. of Surgery, Rutgers University, NJ

Group Leader, CNIO, Madrid

Program Leader, Medical Research Council (MRC), U. Cambridge
Professor, University of Barcelona School of Medicine
Professor, Universite de Caen, France

Staff Scientist, Hoffman-La Roche, Inc.
Genetic Counselor, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Australia

Associate Laboratory Member, Research Facilities @ MSKCC

Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Vienna, Austria

Assoc. Professor of Biochemistry, University of Virginia

Senior Investigator, Lunenfeld Research Institute, U. Toronto

Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing

Director, Biology at Foghorn Therapeutics

Chief Editor, Nature Cancer @ Nature Publishing
Professor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston

Assistant Professor, Westlake University, China
Lab Affiliations
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
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab : Elena Spina arrived in August from University of Calabria.
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab: Kenta Kawasaki arrived in October from Keio University School of Medicine.
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab: Dylan Manuele arrived in June from the University of Rochester.
-
Congratulations: Our first in person lab meeting for 2021!
-
The Massague Lab celebrates the arrival of Zhenghan Wang’s daughter Everly!
-
Farewell: Weiping Shu has retired from the Massague lab after many years of fantastic service as a senior research technician. Thank you Weiping for all your contributions!
-
Congratulations: Harihar Basnet who departed in February as Assistant professor in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences at Tsinghua University
-
Welcome: Sayyed Hamed Shahoei who joined in November from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-
Congratulations : Lin Tian who departed in November as research investigator at the division of Biomarker Discovery, Shanghai China
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab: Lila Peters arrived in July from the University of Michigan
-
Congratulations: George Lampe departed in July to Graduate School at Columbia University.
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab: Jun Ho Lee joined in May from UNIST, Uslan, Republic of Korea
-
Welcome to the Massague Lab: Jin Suk Park joined in March from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

Dr. Massague invited the postdocs to his home for an annual gathering.

In October 2021, A small birthday celebration was held for Gabi.

The Massague Lab had the pleasure to attend a summer happy hour cruise! It was a wonderful time!

The Massague Lab attending their Friday Lab Meetings!

The Massague Lab celebrates the arrival of Zhenghan Wang’s daughter Everly!

Happy Birthday Joan !

Happy Birthday Joan: Post Doc Jin Suk Park playing the clarinet for Joan’s Birthday!

Farewell: Weiping Shu has retired from the Massague lab after many years of fantastic service as a senior research technician. Thank you Weiping for all your contributions!

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.

The Massague Lab came together to celebrate Dr. Massague's Birthday

The Massague Lab came together to wish Dr. Massague a Happy Birthday!

The Massague Lab at Holiday Party
Open Positions
To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center
Get in Touch
-
Lab Head Email
-
Office Phone
-
Office Fax
-
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:
-
Biogen MA Inc.
Provision of Services -
Institute Research Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain
Provision of Services
-
Scholar Rock
Ownership / Equity Interests
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, 2020 through disclosure submission in spring 2021). 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 ecoi@mskcc.org.