Gerta Hoxhaj

Gerta Hoxhaj is an Assistant Professor at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI), with secondary appointments in Pediatrics and Biochemistry. She earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Dundee and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard. Her lab investigates how cancer cells reprogram metabolism to support growth and survival, focusing on redox homeostasis, purine synthesis, and mitochondrial pathways. Key discoveries include mechanisms linking PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 signaling to nucleotide metabolism and the role of NADPH in fueling mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis.

• Affiliations: CRI, UT Southwestern, Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center
• Education: B.S. (Bogazici University), Ph.D. (University of Dundee)

Research interests center on three core questions: how oncogenic signals regulate metabolism, metabolism-tissue function interplay, and metabolite sensing for homeostasis. Her work has revealed therapeutic targets in cancer metabolism, highlighted in Nature Cell Biology and Science.

• Awards: TAMEST Maddox Award (2025), Vilcek Prize (2024), Pew Scholar (2023)

Lab members include graduate students and postdocs studying NAD kinase regulation, mitochondrial metabolism, and tumor metabolic dependencies. Ongoing projects explore dietary nucleotide impacts on cancer and purine salvage pathway inhibitors.