Welcome to the MENTOR Doctoral Network

The metabolic control of cell growth by mTOR in pathophysiology

News

Scientific and social interactions in Nice, they were a big success!

TOR de France International meeting, 9-10th October 2025 in Nice

MENTOR Scientific Kick-off Meeting, Nice 8th October

About

The multi-disciplinary training network MENTOR focuses on the mTOR (mammalian/mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin) network, a central signaling hub that integrates, nutritional cues and controls cell growth and metabolism.

Aberrant mTOR activity underlies a wide range of pathologies, including age-related diseases with high incidence such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes as well as rare genetic conditions, termed mTORopathies, characterized by tumor formation, polycystic kidneys, and brain manifestations.

New mechanistic insights into mTORopathies will improve treatment for people living with rare conditions through strategies of personalized medicine and will open new therapeutic avenues for severe age-related pathologies.

MSCA-DN MENTOR program will involve 18 doctoral candidates with the overall goal of understanding and treating mTORopathies while maximizing the impact towards research and training for cancer, metabolic syndromes, and age-related diseases.

Matthias Wymann

DC 8: Vishrutha Prakash

Justyna Zmorzyńska

DC 10: Sara Owad

Djalila Mekahli

Discover our TEAM

Our research program

MENTOR is a multi-disciplinary training network which focuses on the mTOR pathway, a central mechanistic hub that integrates nutritional cues and controls cell growth and metabolism.

Aberrant activation of mTOR underlies monogenic diseases with broad spectrum of pathological manifestations, including tissue overgrowth, polycystic kidneys and neuropsychiatric disorders affecting around two million of people worldwide. To avoid the medical errancy of patients in different clinical departments and surgical mutilations, approaches of personalized medicine depending on the genetic landscape need to be implemented, taking advantage of suitable pharmacological products.

MENTOR provides a structured PhD program to prepare the future European leaders in academia and industry to address the questions of growth and metabolism at a multidisciplinary level.

The training will be implemented through personalized research projects that include strong collaborations and secondments. To deepen their own background and acquire knowledge of the other disciplines, the DCs will participate in training events given by leaders in academia as well as industry (Cell Signaling Technology, BIT, Topadur). Each year, the annual conference will offer an opportunity for the DCs to critically discuss their data.

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The MENTOR Doctoral Network

Université Paris-Cité (UPCité)
85 Boulevard Saint-Germain,
75006 Paris, France

Coordinator :

Mario Pende

Project manager :

Magdalena Tortyna

Funded by the European Union under the grant agreement No 101168624. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.