Pier Paolo Pandolfi

Pier Paolo Pandolfi has made transformative contributions to understanding PTEN biology and its role as a tumor suppressor in multiple cancer types. His landmark studies demonstrated that even subtle decreases in PTEN expression below a critical threshold dramatically promote tumorigenesis, a concept he termed PTEN haploinsufficiency. He discovered the competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) hypothesis explaining how PTEN expression is regulated by competing mRNA. His work has opened new therapeutic avenues targeting the PTEN/PI3K axis in cancer.