Cell Biology Program

The Lydia Finley Lab

Research

Lydia Finley, PhD

The Finley Lab investigates how cellular metabolic pathways regulate cell fate decisions in stem cells and cancer cells. We combine genetic and metabolomic approaches to investigate cell-type specific growth requirements and elucidate how flux through central metabolic pathways regulates key cellular activities, including self-renewal and differentiation. In particular, we are interested in understanding how changes in metabolite availability shape the chromatin landscape to influence gene expression programs that control cell survival, growth and differentiation. Our work aims to answer fundamental questions about how cells regulate the commitment to differentiation and how failure to execute terminal differentiation can underlie diseases such as cancer.

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Inside My Lab: Lydia Finley

Go inside the lab of Lydia Finley from SKI's Cell Biology Program.

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Featured News

A colorful pigeon standing in an urban setting.

SKI Scientists Discover a New Twist on an 80-Year-Old Biochemical Pathway

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

With the resurgence of interest in cancer metabolism, researchers are coming to realize that there is more to a cell’s biochemistry than once thought.

In Brief

A fluorescent image of cells undergoing differentiation in a mouse model.

Cancer Stem Cells’ Reliance on a Key Amino Acid Could Be an Exploitable Weakness

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

The discovery links metabolism to the way cancer stem cells form tumors.

In the Lab

illustration of the p53 protein binding to a DNA helix

New Findings Clarify How the “Guardian of the Genome” Works

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Surprise! It has to do with metabolism.

Publications

α-Ketoglutarate links p53 to cell fate during tumour suppression. Morris JP 4th*, Yashinskie JJ*, Koche R, Chandwani R, Tian S, Chen CC, Baslan T, Marinkovic ZS, Sánchez-Rivera FJ, Leach SD, Carmona-Fontaine C, Thompson CB, Finley LWS#, Lowe SW#. Nature. 2019 Sep;573(7775):595-599. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1577-5. Epub 2019 Sep 18. PMID: 31534224. (*co-first, #co-corresponding)

Glutamine independence is a selectable feature of pluripotent stem cells. Vardhana SA, Arnold PK, Rosen BP, Chen Y, Carey BW, Huangfu D, Fontaine CC, Thompson CB, Finley LWS. Nat Metab. 2019 Jul;1(7):676-687. doi: 10.1038/s42255-019-0082-3. Epub 2019 Jul 8. PMID: 31511848

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People

Lydia Finley, PhD

Lydia Finley studies the mechanisms that link metabolic pathways to cell fate decisions.
PhD, Harvard University

finleyl@mskcc.org: Email Address
212-639-6722: Office Phone

Members

Pavlina Todorova, PhD — Pavlina Todorova
Research Associate

Lab Alumni

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Searle Scholars Program
Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists
Jack Sorrell Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation

Lab News & Events

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Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

Career Opportunities

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Get in Touch

finleyl@mskcc.org

Lab Head Email
212-639-6722

Office Phone
212-717-3738

Office Fax
212-639-6500

Lab Phone
212-717-3738

Lab Fax

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Lydia Finley discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

No disclosures meeting criteria for time period

The information published here is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2020 through disclosure submission in spring 2021). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at ecoi@mskcc.org.

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