[11][2][12] Sabatini denies that the alleged behavior was sexual harassment, claims that the investigation was biased, and has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Whitehead Institute, its director and his accuser.

[4][15][16] In February 2023, Bill Ackman and an unnamed partner announced $25 million to fund Sabatini's research, though it is unclear if he could successfully find an institution willing to host his lab or if one could be built independently.

[21] As a graduate student in Solomon Snyder's Lab at Johns Hopkins, Sabatini began working on understanding the molecular mechanism of rapamycin; a macrolide antibiotic discovered in the soil of Easter Island that has potent antifungal, immunosuppressive, and anti-tumorigenic properties.

[5] Since starting his own lab at the Whitehead Institute in 1997, Sabatini has made numerous key contributions to the understanding of mTOR function, regulation, and importance in diseases such as cancer.

[24] For example, his lab discovered the mTORC1[25] and mTORC2[26] multi-protein complexes, the nutrient sensing Rag GTPase pathway upstream of mTORC1,[27] as well as the direct amino acid sensors Sestrin[28][29] and CASTOR.

[30][31] Sabatini's research interests have expanded in recent years to include cancer metabolism as well as technology development surrounding the use of high-throughput genetic screens in human cells, most notably through the use of RNA interference[32] and the CRISPR-Cas9 system.