Cell Biology Program

The Lydia Finley Lab

Lydia Finley, PhD

Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chair

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.

VIDEO | 02:00

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

Video Details

Featured News

A colorful pigeon standing in an urban setting.

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

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

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

Surprise! It has to do with metabolism.

Publications Highlights

A non-canonical tricarboxylic acid cycle underlies cellular identity. [PMID: 35264789]
Arnold PK, Jackson BT, Paras KI, Brunner JS, Hart ML, Newsom OJ, Alibeckoff SP, Endress J, Drill E, Sullivan LB, Finley LWS. Nature. 2022 Mar;603(7901):477-481. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04475-w. Epub 2022 Mar 9. PMCID: PMC8934290.

Extracellular serine controls epidermal stem cell fate and tumour initiation. [PMID: 32451440]
Baksh SC, Todorova PK, Gur-Cohen S, Hurwitz B, Ge Y, Novak JSS, Tierney MT, Dela Cruz-Racelis J, Fuchs E#, Finley LWS#. Nat Cell Biol. 2020 Jul;22(7):779-790. doi: 10.1038/s41556-020-0525-9. Epub 2020 May 25. Erratum in: Nat Cell Biol. 2020 Nov;22(11):1396. PMCID: PMC7343604. (#co-corresponding author)

View All Publications

People

Lydia Finley, PhD

Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chair

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

[email protected]: Email Address
212-639-6722: Office Phone

Members

Pavlina Todorova, PhD — Pavlina Todorova
Research Associate

Anna Bridgeman
MSK Bridge Program Scholar

Lab Alumni

Paige Arnold
Postdoctoral Associate at Rockefeller University, New York, NY

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

New York Stem Cell Foundation – Robertson Investigator (2023)
Louise and Allston Boyer Young Investigator Award for Basic Research (2022)
National Cancer Institute R37 MERIT Award (2020)
Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Cancer Research (2020)
Searle Scholar (2018)

Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Award of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (2017)

Lab News & Events

Accolades

Team Recognitions

Paige Arnold, Gerstner Sloan Kettering Chairman’s Prize (2022)
Paige Arnold, Weintraub Award (2022)
Sanjeethan Baksh, STAT Wunderkind (2022)
Benjamin Jackson, NIH/NICHD F31 (2022)
Katrina Paras, Bruce Charles Forbes Pre-Doctoral Fellowship (2021)
Benjamin Jackson, Gerstner Sloan Kettering Grayer Fellowship (2021)
Julia Brunner, Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship (2021)
Sanjeethan Baksh, Olaf S. Anderson Physician-Scientist Award (2021)
Paige Arnold, NIH/NICHD F31 (2019)
Jossie Yashinskie, AACR Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award (2018)
Jossie Yashinskie, NIH/NICHD T32 fellowship (2018)

Open Positions

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

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Career Opportunities

Apply now

Get in Touch

[email protected]

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, 2022 through disclosure submission in spring 2023). 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 [email protected].

View all disclosures