Joan Massagué studies the control of stem cell growth and phenotype in tumor progression, metastasis, and response to therapy.
Massagué is credited with establishing the dual role of TGFβ, which can both inhibit and activate tumor cell growth, and identifying its importance in cancer. His work identified the TGF-β receptors and cell signaling pathway, and defined the central concept of how this pathway controls cell fate
In 2003, Dr. Massagué and colleagues documented the effects of the gain or loss of the TGF-β pathway in a mouse model of breast cancer, showing that it can increase lung metastases but suppress the growth of primary tumors. That same year, he published another paper that found that two genes expressed in breast cancer were increased in the presence of TGF-β and enabled the tumor cells to metastasize to the bone.
On January 13, 2020, a study by Massagué-led Sloan Kettering Institute in New York published a report in Nature Cancer, which deciphered the origin of metastases, which were previously believed to have begun by genetic mutations. With this discovery, the result of nearly 20 years of research, the path to better cancer treatments is being opened.