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Semir Beyaz

Semir Beyaz

Assistant Professor
Cancer Center Member

Ph.D., Harvard University, 2017

beyaz@cshl.edu | 516-367-4128

Faculty Profile

Are you really what you eat? Our goal is to uncover the precise mechanisms that link nutrition to organismal health and disease states at the cellular and molecular level. A particular focus in our lab is to understand how dietary perturbations affect the immune system and contribute to the risk of diseases that are associated with immune dysfunction such as cancer.

Cells respond and adapt to the signals that they receive from their environment. Environmental factors such as nutrients affect cellular states by altering cell state-specific gene expression or metabolic programs. My research group investigates the causal cellular and molecular mechanisms that link nutrition to organismal health and disease. For example, diets that lead to obesity, such as high fat diets are significant environmental risk factors that influence cancer incidence and progression in several tissues. Although the interactions between tumor cells and the immune system play a significant role in tumorigenesis, little is known about how dietary perturbations impact immunity against cancer. Our studies interrogate the functional consequences of diets on immune recognition and response pathways that play critical role in cancer immunity. By identifying the altered gene expression and metabolic programs in the immune system in response to dietary perturbations, our goal is to uncover mechanistic links that can be therapeutically exploited for the treatment of diseases associated with immune dysfunction such as cancer.

CSHL Fellow Semir Beyaz wins three awards
The Janeway Award, New England Immunology Conference
Trainee Award, American Association of Immunologists
Outstanding Poster Award, International Society for Stem Cell Research
Zhongmei Chen Yong Travel Award for Scientific Excellence, International Society for Stem Cell Research
Merit Award, International Society for Stem Cell Research
Thermo-Fisher Trainee Achievement Award, American Association of Immunologists

Study: High-Fat Diets May Raise Cancer Risk
High-fat diets increase risk of tumors forming in the gut, say scientists
How A High-Fat Diet Can Increase Cancer Risk

See all Beyaz news

Selected Publications

High-fat diet activates a PPAR-δ program to enhance intestinal stem cell function.

1 Apr 2021 | Cell Stem Cell | 28(4):598-599
Beyaz, Semir, Mana, Miyeko, Yilmaz, Ömer

IL-22 receptor signaling in Paneth cells is critical for their maturation, microbiota colonization, Th17-related immune responses, and anti-Salmonella immunity

15 Oct 2020 | Mucosal Immunology
Gaudino, S, Beaupre, M, Lin, X, Joshi, P, Rathi, S, McLaughlin, P, Kempen, C, Mehta, N, Eskiocak, O, Yueh, B, Blumberg, R, van der Velden, A, Shroyer, K, Bialkowska, A, Beyaz, S, Kumar, P

Dietary suppression of MHC-II expression in intestinal stem cells enhances intestinal tumorigenesis

8 Sep 2020 | BioRxiv
Beyaz, S, Roper, J, Bauer-Rowe, K, Xifaras, M, Ergin, I, Dohnalova, L, Biton, M, Shekar, K, Mou, H, Eskiocak, O, Ozata, D, Papciak, K, Chung, C, Almeqdadi, M, Fein, M, Valle-Encinas, E, Erdemir, A, Dogum, K, Garipcan, A, Meyer, H, Fox, J, Elinav, E, Kucukural, A, Kumar, P, McAleer, J, Thaiss, C, Regev, A, Orkin, S, Yilmaz, O

Distribution and storage of inflammatory memory in barrier tissues

3 Feb 2020 | Nature Reviews Immunology | 20(5):308-320
Ordovas-Montanes, J, Beyaz, S, Rakoff-Nahoum, S, Shalek, A

Oncogenic KRAS Reduces Expression of FGF21 in Acinar Cells to Promote Pancreatic Tumorigenesis in Mice on a High-Fat Diet

25 Jul 2019 | Gastroenterology | 157(5)
Luo, Y, Yang, Y, Liu, M, Wang, D, Wang, F, Bi, Y, Ji, J, Li, S, Liu, Y, Chen, R, Huang, H, Wang, X, Swidnicka-Siergiejko, A, Janowitz, T, Beyaz, S, Wang, G, Xu, S, Bialkowska, A, Luo, C, Pin, C, Liang, G, Lu, X, Wu, M, Shroyer, K, Wolff, R, Plunkett, W, Ji, B, Li, Z, Li, E, Li, X, Yang, V, Logsdon, C, Abbruzzese, J, Lu, W

All Publications

Immunometabolism at the crossroads of obesity and cancer-a Keystone Symposia report.

May 2023 | Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences | 1523(1):38-50
Cable, Jennifer, Rathmell, Jeffrey, Pearce, Erika, Ho, Ping-Chih, Haigis, Marcia, Mamedov, Murad, Wu, Meng-Ju, Kaech, Susan, Lynch, Lydia, Febbraio, Mark, Bapat, Sagar, Hong, Hanna, Zou, Weiping, Belkaid, Yasmine, Sullivan, Zuri, Keller, Andrea, Wculek, Stefanie, Green, Douglas, Postic, Catherine, Amit, Ido, Benitah, Salvador, Jones, Russell, Reina-Campos, Miguel, Torres, Santiago, Beyaz, Semir, Brennan, Donal, O'Neill, Luke, Perry, Rachel, Brenner, Dirk

CRISPR-induced exon skipping of β-catenin reveals tumorigenic mutants driving distinct subtypes of liver cancer

15 Jan 2023 | Journal of Pathology
Mou, Haiwei, Eskiocak, Onur, Özler, Kadir, Gorman, Megan, Yue, Junjiayu, Jin, Ying, Wang, Zhikai, Gao, Ya, Janowitz, Tobias, Meyer, Hannah, Yu, Tianxiong, Wilkinson, John, Kucukural, Alper, Ozata, Deniz, Beyaz, Semir

Establishing patient-derived organoids from human endometrial cancer and normal endometrium.

2023 | Frontiers in Endocrinology | 14:1059228
Katcher, Arielle, Yueh, Brian, Ozler, Kadir, Nizam, Aaron, Kredentser, Ariel, Chung, Charlie, Frimer, Marina, Goldberg, Gary, Beyaz, Semir

Neurotensin neurons in the extended amygdala control dietary choice and energy homeostasis

20 Oct 2022 | Nature Neuroscience
Furlan, Alessandro, Corona, Alberto, Boyle, Sara, Sharma, Radhashree, Rubino, Rachel, Habel, Jill, Gablenz, Eva, Giovanniello, Jacqueline, Beyaz, Semir, Janowitz, Tobias, Shea, Stephen, Li, Bo

Correction: γδ T cell IFNγ production is directly subverted by Yersinia pseudotuberculosis outer protein YopJ in mice and humans

May 2022 | PLoS Pathogens | 18(5):e1010586
Chu, Timothy, Khairallah, Camille, Shieh, Jason, Cho, Rhea, Qiu, Zhijuan, Zhang, Yue, Eskiocak, Onur, Thanassi, David, Kaplan, Mark, Beyaz, Semir, Yang, Vincent, Bliska, James, Sheridan, Brian

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