Rate My Professor Monther Abu-Remaileh

Monther Abu-Remaileh is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Genetics at Stanford University, as well as an Institute Scholar of Sarafan ChEM-H. He holds memberships in Bio-X, the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute, Stanford Cancer Institute, and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Abu-Remaileh received his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2014, with a focus on gene regulation in development and cancer. He conducted his postdoctoral training in subcellular metabolism at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and MIT, completing it in 2019. Since joining Stanford, he has been recognized as a Terman Faculty Fellow in 2019.

The Abu-Remaileh Lab employs multidisciplinary approaches, including metabolomics, proteomics, and functional genomics, to study the lysosome's biochemical functions in vitro and in vivo. The lab identifies novel pathways enabling cellular and organismal adaptation to metabolic stress and environmental changes. It examines how lysosomal dysfunction contributes to human diseases, including lysosomal storage diseases, cancer, neurodegeneration, and metabolic syndrome. Research highlights include lysosomal lipid metabolism, such as the role of PLA2G15 as a BMP hydrolase, and the development of tools like LysoIP for lysosomal analyses. These efforts aim to engineer therapeutic modalities targeting lysosomal pathways.

Abu-Remaileh has garnered numerous honors, including the Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipid Research from the ASBMB (2026), Arc Innovation Investigator (2025), Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2025), Günter Blobel Early Career Award from the ASCB (2024), R.R. Bensley Award in Cell Biology from the AAA (2024), Pew-Stewart Scholar from The Pew Charitable Trusts (2022), NIH Director's New Innovator Award (2021), and Cancer Innovation Award from Stanford Cancer Institute (2020). His key publications encompass 'Cell-type resolved protein atlas of brain lysosomes identifies SLC45A1-associated disease as a lysosomal disorder' (Cell, 2026), 'PLA2G15 is a BMP hydrolase and its targeting ameliorates lysosomal disease' (Nature, 2025), 'The Bis(monoacylglycero)-phosphate Hypothesis: From Lysosomal Function to Therapeutic Avenues' (Annual Review of Biochemistry, 2024), 'The Batten disease gene product CLN5 is the lysosomal bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate synthase' (Science, 2023), and 'Lysosomal metabolomics reveals V-ATPase- and mTOR-dependent regulation of amino acid efflux from lysosomes' (Science, 2017). This body of work has significantly influenced lysosomal biology and therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders.