# Reuben Shaw

Source: https://onco.cc/people/reuben-shaw/  
OnCo record `reuben-shaw` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Cancer biologist who directs the NCI-designated Salk Cancer Center in La Jolla and holds the William R. Brody Chair at the Salk Institute.

## Summary

Reuben Shaw is Director of the NCI-designated Salk Cancer Center and a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he holds the William R. Brody Chair. His laboratory studies how cancer and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes share biochemical pathways, centred on the AMPK pathway and its regulation by the tumour suppressor LKB1, which led him to test whether metabolic drugs such as metformin could be used against cancer. He trained at Cornell (BS), MIT (PhD) and Harvard Medical School (postdoctoral), and received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist award in 2009 and a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award in 2017.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-10
- Tags: leadership; clinician-scientist; research-institute
- Role: Director of the Salk Cancer Center, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
- Specialisms: Cancer metabolism; AMPK and LKB1 signalling; Molecular and cell biology

## Sources

- Source: Salk Institute faculty profile naming him Director of the Salk Cancer Center: https://www.salk.edu/scientist/reuben-shaw/

## Connected records

- institutions: [Howard Hughes Medical Institute](https://onco.cc/institutions/hhmi/), [Salk Institute Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/salk-institute/)
- terms: [Tumour suppressor gene](https://onco.cc/terms/tumour-suppressor-gene/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/reuben-shaw.json