He Was a World-Renowned Cancer Researcher. Now's He's Collecting Unemployment.

Behind the fall of David Sabatini, 'one of the greatest scientists' of his generation.

Suzy Weiss May 19, 2022

In 2018, David Sabatini was a world-renowned molecular biologist. He was a tenured professor at MIT. He ran a major lab at the Whitehead Institute, overseeing a team of 39 researchers, postdocs and technicians. Their job was to disentangle the mystery of the mTOR signaling pathway, a protein Sabatini had discovered while still in medical school, at Johns Hopkins. The mTOR signaling pathway plays a critical role in tumor development. Figuring out how it works would go a long way toward saving countless lives. 

This was why Sabatini was predicted to win the Nobel Prize. It was how he reeled in between three and four million dollars every year for his lab from the National Institutes of Health, the Pentagon and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among others. It is why his colleagues have described him to me with words like “genius,” “one of the best scientists alive,” and “a pillar.”

“It’s like working for Steve Jobs. He can be brutal,” said one scientist. “But why would you want to work for anyone else?” ..........To Read More....