Reuven Agami started his research career as a PhD student working on the c-Abl kinase protein and apoptosis in the lab of Yosef Shaul at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In 1998 he moved to The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, as a postdoc fellow working on initiation and maintenance of DNA damage responses. In 2001 he began his own lab at the division of tumor biology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute working on stable inactivation of human genes by RNA interference as well as microRNAs. In 2008 he was chosen to become a division head of Gene regulation at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam. In 2009 he became professor at the department of Genetics, Erasmus medical center in Rotterdam. In 2014 he moved to head the division of Biological Stress Response at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, and since 2017 he is heading the division of Oncogenomics at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.

Major breakthroughs of Reuven Agami were the discovery of c-Abl/p73 interaction and its role in cell cycle arrest and apoptosis during his PhD, the role of cyclin D1 degradation following DNA damage during his Postdoc, as well as the development of pSUPER, the first RNAi vector for stable suppression of gene expression in mammalian cells, and the establishment of cancerous roles of numerous microRNAs and RNA binding proteins using novel genetic screening approaches as a young group leader. As a more senior investigator he contributed to understanding the role of alternative cleavage and polyadenylation of mRNAs (APA) in human disease, the functional role of regulatory DNA elements in cancer, the connection between transcription and translation, and finally the identification and utilization of amino acid shortages in cancer.

• 2024: Awarded ERC advanced project "Peptalks" on aberrant protein production in cancer .

• 2023: Elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

• 2019: Awarded ERC advanced project "Breakborder" on structural regulatory elements. 

• 2016: Awarded ZonMW-TOP grant project on enhancers in breast and prostate cancer.

• 2012: Awarded ERC advanced project on enhancer RNAs. 

• 2011: VICI grant award, ZonMW website.

• 2010: ESCI Award Winner 2010, Basic/Translational Research ESCI website.

• 2009: Professor at the Genetics and Pathology departments of Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam

• 2008: Awarded ERC starting project on microRNA regulation

• 2008: Elected member of the central for biomedical genetics (CBG)

• 2008: Elected member of EMBO

• 2007: Awarded The Dr. Joseph Steiner Prize, Switzerland

• 2007 in Biel. 2006: Elected member of the young academy (DJA-KNAW).

• 2004: EMBO young investigator award.

• 2004: VIDI grant.

• 2004: European Young Investigator Award (EURYI).

• 2002: Elected fellow of the central for biomedical genetics (CBG).

• 2001: Netherlands Cancer Institute (AVL) award. 1999: EMBO long-term fellowship.

• 2025 | Upstream open reading frame translation enhances immunogenic peptide presentation in mitotically arrested cancer cells | Alexander Kowar et al. | Nature Communications | View publication
• 2025 | Adoptive T cell therapy targeting an inducible and broadly shared product of aberrant mRNA translation | Julien Champagne et al. | Immunity | View publication
• 2024 | Arginine deprivation enriches lung cancer proteomes with cysteine by inducing arginine-to-cysteine substitutants | Chao Yang et al. | Molecular Cell | View publication
• 2024 | DNA damage induces p53-independent apoptosis through ribosome stalling | Nicolaas J. Boon et al. | Science | View publication
• 2024 | Chemotherapeutic agents and leucine deprivation induce codon-biased aberrant protein production in cancer | Adva Kochavi et al. | Nucleic Acids Research | View publication
• 2022 | Tryptophan depletion results in tryptophan-to-phenylalanine substitutants | Abhijeet Pataskar et al. | Nature | View publication
• 2021 | Oncogene-dependent sloppiness in mRNA translation | Julien Champagne et al. | Molecular Cell | View publication
• 2021 | Anti-tumour immunity induces aberrant peptide presentation in melanoma | Osnat Bartok et al. | Nature | View publication
• 2017 | Transcription impacts the efficiency of mRNA translation via co-transcriptional N6-adenosine methylation | Boris Slobodin et al. | Cell | View publication
• 2016 | Tumour-specific proline vulnerability uncovered by differential ribosome codon reading | Fabricio Loayza-Puch et al. | Nature | View publication
• 2016 | Functional genetic screens for enhancer elements in the human genome using CRISPR-Cas9 | Gozde Korkmaz et al. | Nature Biotechnology | View publication 
• 2012 | The poly(A)-binding protein nuclear 1 suppresses alternative cleavage and polyadenylation sites | Mathias Jenal et al. | Cell | View publication
• 2007 | RNA-binding protein Dnd1 inhibits microRNA access to target mRNA | Martijn Kedde et al. | Cell | View publication
• 2006 | A genetic screen implicates miRNA-372 and miRNA-373 as oncogenes in testicular germ cell tumors | P. Mathijs Voorhoeve et al. | Cell | View publication
• 2002 | A system for stable expression of short interfering RNAs in mammalian cells | Thijn R. Brummelkamp | Science | View publication