He is currently the chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, and the Ellen and Gerald Ritter Professor of Oncology at the New York University School of Medicine.
In particular, his work has uncovered the molecular mechanisms by which CRLs control cell cycle progression, signal transduction pathways, and the DNA damage response.
[4][5][6] In 1990, Pagano earned his MD and a specialty diploma in molecular endocrinology from the University of Naples Federico II, where he first conducted basic research on the estrogen receptor.
After completing his medical training, he first moved to the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany, and then to Mitotix Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts (a pharmaceutical startup that he co-founded and that pioneered the concept of CDK inhibitors as anti-cancer agents), where he carried out his postdoctoral studies under the mentorship of Gulio Draetta.
As a postdoctoral fellow, Pagano first described the importance of cyclins and CDKs for DNA replication, and then the role of the ubiquitin system in controlling the cellular levels of CDK inhibitors.