Naama Kanarek PhD
Assistant Professor, Pathology Department, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
A native of Jerusalem, Israel, Dr. Naama Kanarek trained at the Hebrew University, where she earned a BSc in medical science, an MSc in proteomics and microbiology, and a PhD in immunology and cancer research (including one year at Columbia University Medical Center, NY). Dr. Kanarek’s postdoctoral research was performed under the supervision of Prof. David M. Sabatini at MIT’s Whitehead Institute.
Dr. Kanarek is the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including the Margaret and Herman Sokol Postdoctoral Award, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society New Idea Award, the Hebrew University Women in Science Postdoctoral Award, the Weizmann Institute Postdoctoral Award for Advancing Women in Science and a Revson Fellow of that program, and the James Sivarsten Prize in Pediatric Cancer Research. Her postdoctoral work was supported by fellowships from the American Association for Cancer Research and the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Dr. Kanarek’s laboratory is interested in folate metabolism, and the metabolic adaptations of cells as they move around and migrate to new sites. They apply genetic perturbations, biochemical assays, molecular biology, functional genomic screens, and metabolite profiling by mass spectrometry in cell-culture systems and in vivo. They study basic folate biology including folate metabolism, folate-related signal transduction, the oncogenic role of folate and folate homeostasis in normal physiology and pathological conditions.