Dimitrios Anastasiou

Dimitrios (or, less formally, Dimitris) obtained a B.Sc. in Molecular Biology from the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (now Structural & Molecular Biology), University College London, in 2001. His studies included an Industrial Placement year at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline) in Harlow, where he developed mass spectrometry-based methods for the study of protein post-translational modifications.

He then moved to Switzerland to pursue doctoral studies with Wilhelm Krek, first at the Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) in Basel, and then at the ETH-Zürich, where he investigated molecular mechanisms that underlie the regulation of sirtuins, a class of NAD-dependent deacetylases with roles in metabolic regulation and ageing. For this work, he obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Basel in 2006.

In 2007, Dimitris joined the lab of Lewis Cantley, as a Postdoctoral Fellow and, later, as an Instructor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. His work in Boston focused on understanding metabolic reprogramming in cancer. He also contributed to the development of small molecule activators that target the glycolytic enzyme pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) as potential therapeutics.

Dimitris started as a Programme Leader at the NIMR in October 2012. His group is investigating mechanisms by which metabolism contributes to disease.