Sarah Slavoff

Member of the Institute of Biomolecular Design and Discovery 
Member of Yale faculty since 2014

Research Interests

• Chemical Biology
• Biophysical Chemistry

Research 

We are developing chemical and biological tools to study the “dark matter of the human genome” —previously undiscovered small open reading frames that encode microproteins — and their functions, including spatiotemportal regulation of RNA in human cells. Human small open reading frames may number in the thousands, and some have been linked to disease, but the vast majority remain entirely uncharacterized. We utilize a broad range of interdisciplinary methods, including mass spectrometry-based proteomics, cellular imaging, chemical synthesis, and small molecule-mediated control of biomolecular function.

Education

B.S. University of Maryland, College Park, 2005
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010
NIH Ruth L. Kirchstein Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2010-14

Honors

Searle Scholar Award, 2016 
Yale Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Research or Publication, 2020
Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group Distinguished Investigator Award, 2021 
Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader Award, 2022   
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, 2022 
  

Recent Publications

For a complete listing, see https://slavofflab.yale.edu/publications-yale

X. Cao, A. Khitun, C. M. Harold, C. J. Bryant, S. J. Zheng, S. J. Baserga, S. A. Slavoff. “Nascent alt-protein chemoproteomics reveals a pre-60S assembly checkpoint inhibitor.” Nature Chemical Biology, 2022, 18(6): 643-651. 

​Z. Na, Y. Luo, D. Cui, A. Khitun, S. Smelyansky, J. P. Loria, S. A. Slavoff. “Phosphorylation of a human microprotein promotes dissociation of biomolecular condensates.” Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2021, 143(32): 12675-12687. 

X. Cao, A. Khitun, Y. Luo, Z. Na, T. Phoodokmai, K. Sappakhaw, E. Olatunji, C. Uttamapinant, S. A. Slavoff. “Alt-RPL36 downregulates the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling pathway by interacting with TMEM24.” Nature Communications, 2021, 12(1): 508.

Y. Luo, J. A. Schofield, Z. Na, T. Hann, M. D. Simon, S. A. Slavoff. “Identification of human Dcp2 RNA decapping substrates with a stapled peptide inhibitor.” Cell Chemical Biology, 2021, 28(4): 463-474.e7.

N. D’Lima, J. Ma, L. Winkler, K. H. Loh, Q. Chu, E. Corpuz, J. Lykke-Andersen, A. Saghatelian, S. A. Slavoff. “A human short open reading frame-encoded polypeptide that interacts with the mRNA decapping complex.” Nature Chemical Biology, 2017, 13: 174–180.