Costas Lyssiotis

Costas Lyssiotis, Ph.D.

Director, Doctoral Program in Cancer Biology
Maisel Research Professor of Oncology
Professor, Molecular & Integrative Physiology
Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology

Biography

Costas A. Lyssiotis obtained his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Michigan in 2004, his PhD in Chemical Biology from The Scripps Research Institute in 2010, and then completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Lewis C. Cantley at Harvard and Cornell. In 2015, Dr. Lyssiotis joined the faculty at the University of Michigan with appointments in the Departments of Physiology and Medicine. His lab studies the biochemical pathways and metabolic requirements that enable tumor survival and growth. This work spans the areas of cancer metabolism, the tumor microenvironment and immunometabolism using and developing protocols in mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Ultimately, his group aims to transition new information about these processes into targeted therapies for cancer and other diseases. He is the recipient of several junior scholar awards including being named a Lefkofsky Scholar, a Kimmel Scholar, an AACR NextGen young investigator, a Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist, and a V Foundation Fellow.

Research Interests

Tumor Metabolism, Cancer, Pancreatic Cancer, Immunometabolism, Metabolomics, Autoimmunity

Publications

Kremer DM, Nelson BS, Lin L, Sajjakulnukit P, Myers A, Thurston G, Halbrook CJ, Andren AC, Nwosu ZC, Cousmano N, Wisner S, Ramos J, Gao T, Yarosz, Badgley MA, Zhang L, Asara JM, Crawford HC, Shah Y, Olive KP, Lyssiotis CA. GOT1 Inhibition Primes Pancreatic Cancer for Ferroptosis through the Autophagic Release of Labile Iron. Nature Communications, ePub ahead of print.

Halbrook CJ, Pontious C, Lee H-J, Kovalenko I, Zhang Y, Lapienyte L, Dreyer S, Kremer DL, Zhang L, Sajjakulnukit P, Zhang L, Nelson B, Hong H, Kemp S, Chang D, Biankin A, Crawford HC, Morton JP, Pasca di Magliano M, Lyssiotis CA. Macrophage Released Pyrimidines Inhibit Gemcitabine Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer. Cell Metabolism, 2019;29:1390-1399.

Sousa CM, Biancur DE, Wang X, Halbrook CJ, Sherman MH, Zhang L, Kremer D, Hwang RF, Witkiewicz AK, Ying H, Asara JM, Evans RM, Cantley LC, †Lyssiotis CA [†co-senior authors], †Kimmelman AC. Pancreatic Stellate Cells Support Tumor Metabolism Through Autophagic Alanine Secretion. Nature 2016;536:479–483.

 Badgley MA, Kremer DM, Maurer HC, DelGiorno KE, Lee H-J, Purohit V, Sagalovskiy I, Firl CEM, Sastra SA, Palermo CF, Kapillian J, Decker A, Ma A, Sajjakulnukit P, Zhang L, Tolstyka ZP, Cerf TH, Liu T, Gu W, Seeley ES, Stone E, Georgiou G, Luga A, Wahl GM, Stockwell BR, Lyssiotis CA, Olive KP. Cysteine depletion induces pancreatic tumor ferroptosis in mice.Science, 2020;368:85-89.

Kerk S, Papagianakopulos T, Shah Y, Lyssiotis CA. Tissue dependencies in cancer metabolism: KRAS-driven cancers. Nature Reviews Cancer, ePub ahead of print.