Louis Anthony Tartaglia is an American biochemist, pharmaceutical scientist, and entrepreneur. As a scientist, he is known for first identifying and cloning the
leptin
Leptin (from Ancient Greek, Greek λεπτός ''leptos'', "thin" or "light" or "small") is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells and enterocytes in the small intestine that helps to regulate Energy homeostasis, energy balance by inhib ...
receptor in 1995, a discovery that prompted immediate coverage in US national media given its expected clinical significance.
He is also known for studying signaling mechanisms from the
tumor necrosis factor
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF, cachexin, or cachectin; formerly known as tumor necrosis factor alpha or TNF-α) is an adipokine and a cytokine. TNF is a member of the TNF superfamily, which consists of various transmembrane proteins with a homolog ...
(
TNF
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF, cachexin, or cachectin; formerly known as tumor necrosis factor alpha or TNF-α) is an adipokine and a cytokine. TNF is a member of the TNF superfamily, which consists of various transmembrane proteins with a homolog ...
) receptors, and for publishing studies in the fields of obesity and diabetes which are often discussed in subject reviews.
After moving from academia to industry in 1990, for over a decade he accompanied the growth of
Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Takeda Oncology (originally Millennium Pharmaceuticals) is a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical.
Takeda Oncology's research, development and commercialization act ...
, reaching top positions within the company. From executive roles he has occupied in venture capital firms, and as a member of several advisory boards,
Tartaglia has helped start a number of therapeutics oriented companies that have found their way into the market, among them
Agios
''Agios'' ( el, Άγιος), plural ''Agioi'' (), transcribes masculine gender Greek words meaning ' sacred' or ' saint' (for example Agios Dimitrios, Agioi Anargyroi). It is frequently shortened in colloquial language to ''Ai'' (for example Ai ...
,
Editas, Rhythm, and Zafgen.
Tartaglia was born in Albany, New York in 1963.
Education
In 1990, Tartaglia received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
in the laboratory of professor
Bruce Ames
Bruce Nathan Ames (born December 16, 1928) is an American biochemist. He is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research ...
. Between 1990 and 1993, he did postdoctoral research in the lab of
David Goeddel
David V. Goeddel (born 1951) is an American molecular biologist who, employed at the time by Genentech, successfully used genetic engineering to coax bacteria into creating synthetic human insulin, human growth hormone, and human tissue plasmino ...
at
Genentech
Genentech, Inc., is an American biotechnology corporation headquartered in South San Francisco, California. It became an independent subsidiary of Roche in 2009. Genentech Research and Early Development operates as an independent center within R ...
, authoring over 10 original papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Career
In 1993, Tartaglia began his career as the first employee and scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He led a lab that cloned and characterized several genes related to obesity and diabetes, which led to over 30 original scientific publications and over 20 patents. Promoted to Vice President of Metabolic Diseases in 1999, he led a team devoted to discovering drug candidates for the firm's pharmaceutical company partners. In 2004, he became Vice President of New Ventures at Millenium. Between 2004 and 2007, he worked in Gene Logic. In 2007, joined a new venture capital firm (Third Rock Ventures) devoted to launching new biotech companies. At this firm, he accompanied the start of companies Agios, Ablexis, Rhythm, Editas, Ember, and Zafgen. In 2016 Tartaglia joined 5AM Ventures to lead their ''de novo'' company formation where he oversaw the foundation of companies Entrada and Diagon.
Research
As a Ph.D. student under Bruce Ames at UC Berkeley in 1985, he studied the bacterial defense to oxidants and co-authored half a dozen papers, including an article in
''Science'' describing the first known transcription factor to be directly activated by
oxidative stress
Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily Detoxification, detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage. Disturbances ...
.
During his postdoctoral years at Genentech under David Goeddel, Tartaglia co-authored a dozen papers on
TNF
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF, cachexin, or cachectin; formerly known as tumor necrosis factor alpha or TNF-α) is an adipokine and a cytokine. TNF is a member of the TNF superfamily, which consists of various transmembrane proteins with a homolog ...
(Tumour necrosis factor) receptors, coining the term “Death Domain” to refer to the signaling of programmed cell death; homologous domains were later found in many receptors and signal transduction molecules.
After joining Millennium Pharmaceuticals in 1993, his group soon cloned the receptor for the "obesity hormone"
leptin
Leptin (from Ancient Greek, Greek λεπτός ''leptos'', "thin" or "light" or "small") is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells and enterocytes in the small intestine that helps to regulate Energy homeostasis, energy balance by inhib ...
. He published this work in 1995 in an article which was selected in 2004 by ''
Cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
'' among the 16 most “memorable papers” in its 30-year history. Soon after publication in ''Cell'', this discovery was announced on several national press media.
In a collaborative effort with the
Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...
, in 1999, his group identified a small intestinal protein (
FA transport protein), which was found to play a key role in the uptake of dietary fat into the body.
Tartaglia´s further research went on to clone and characterize
mitochondrial
A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is use ...
uncoupling genes
UCP2
Mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''UCP2'' gene.
Mitochondrial uncoupling proteins (UCP) are members of the larger family of mitochondrial anion carrier proteins (MACP). UCPs separate, or uncouple, o ...
and
UCP3, in collaboration with colleagues from
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
and
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, in the U.S. state of Oregon with a small portion bordering Portland in the Tualatin Valley. The city is among the main cities that make up the Portland metropolitan area. Its population was 97,494 at the ...
).
Publications
His most cited original research articles are:
* Tartaglia, L.A., Ayres, T.M., Wong, G.H. and Goeddel, D.V., (1993). A novel domain within the 55 kd TNF receptor signals cell death. ''Cell'', ''74''(5), pp.845-853. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 1657 times.
* L A Tartaglia 1, M Dembski, X Weng, N Deng, J Culpepper, R Devos, G J Richards, L A Campfield, F T Clark, J Deeds, C Muir, S Sanker, A Moriarty, K J Moore, J S Smutko, G G Mays, E A Wool, C A Monroe, R I Tepper. (1995) Identification and expression cloning of a leptin receptor, OB-R. ''Cell'' 83(7):1263-71. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 4548 times.
* Chen, H., Charlat, O., Tartaglia, L.A., Woolf, E.A., Weng, X., Ellis, S.J., Lakey, N.D., Culpepper, J., More, K.J., Breitbart, R.E. and Duyk, G.M., (1996). Evidence that the diabetes gene encodes the leptin receptor: identification of a mutation in the leptin receptor gene in db/db mice. ''Cell'', 84(3), pp.491-495. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 2512 times.
* Xu H, Barnes GT, Yang Q, Tan G, Yang D, Chou CJ, Sole J, Nichols A, Ross JS, Tartaglia LA, Chen H. (2003) Chronic inflammation in fat plays a crucial role in the development of obesity-related insulin resistance. The ''Journal of Clinical Investigation'' 112.12 (2003): 1821-1830. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 6809 times.
His most cited
subject review articles are:
* Tartaglia, L.A. and Goeddel, D.V., (1992). Two TNF receptors. ''Immunology today'', ''13''(5), pp.151-153. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 1338 times.
* Tartaglia, L.A., (1997). The leptin receptor. ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'', 272(10), pp.6093-6096. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 1744 times.
Patents
In the industrial milieu, Tartaglia has been granted over 30 patents involving biomedical methods. These include the leptin receptor patent, the screening of UCPH (UCP2) levels to monitor weight disorders, and the administration of
melanocortin 4 receptor
Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) is a melanocortin receptor that in humans is encoded by the gene. It encodes the MC4R protein, a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that binds α-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH). In mouse models, MC4 recepto ...
(MC4R) agonists to certain patients, an approach currently undergoing phase 3 trials, sponsored by the patent assignee, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tartaglia, Louis
1963 births
Living people
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Scientists from New York (state)
People from Albany, New York
American biochemists