Steve Kay, PhD

University and Provost Professor of Neurology, Cancer Biology, Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences

David L. Lee and Simon Ramo Chair in Health Science and Technology

Director of Convergent Bioscience

Co-Director of the USC Norris Center for Cancer Drug Development

Acting Director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and Acting Chair of Physiology & Neuroscience

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Overview

Dr. Steve Kay currently serves as the Director of the MESH (Medicine, Engineering, Sciences, and Humanities) Academy, the Director of the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, and is a Provost Professor of Neurology, Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He held the position as the 21st dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences from 2012 to 2015. Dr. Kay is one of the world’s top experts on the genetics and genomics of circadian rhythms. Having published more than 200 papers, he was named by Thomson Reuters as one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” from 2014 to 2017 and has been cited in Science magazine’s “Breakthroughs of the Year” three times since 1997. In 2008, Dr. Kay was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2009 he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2011 he was awarded the American Society of Plant Biologists’ 2011 Martin Gibbs Medal for his pioneering work in plant sciences. To learn more about the Kay Laboratory and current research visit https://kaylab.usc.edu/Dr. Kay received his PhD and DSc from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Prior to joining USC in 2012, Dr. Kay served as dean of biological sciences at the University of California, San Diego. He also has held faculty positions at The Rockefeller University, University of Virginia and The Scripps Research Institute, as well as served as the VP of discovery research at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, where he focused on using high throughput technologies to push novel development candidates into the Novartis clinical pipeline. Dr. Kay served as president of The Scripps Research Institute from 2015 to 2016. In addition, he has founded several biotechnology companies.

Publications

  • Watching the clock in glioblastoma. Neuro Oncol. 2023 11 02; 25(11):1932-1946.. View in PubMed
  • Epidermal GIGANTEA adjusts the response to shade at dusk by directly impinging on PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR 7 function. bioRxiv. 2023 Mar 23.. View in PubMed
  • Circadian regulator BMAL1::CLOCK promotes cell proliferation in hepatocellular carcinoma by controlling apoptosis and cell cycle. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 01 10; 120(2):e2214829120.. View in PubMed
  • E-box binding transcription factors in cancer. Front Oncol. 2023; 13:1223208.. View in PubMed
  • CRY2 isoform selectivity of a circadian clock modulator with antiglioblastoma efficacy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 10 04; 119(40):e2203936119.. View in PubMed
  • The actin cytoskeleton-MRTF/SRF cascade transduces cellular physical niche cues to entrain the circadian clock. J Cell Sci. 2022 10 01; 135(19).. View in PubMed
  • Phosphorylation of RNA Polymerase II by CDKC;2 Maintains the Arabidopsis Circadian Clock Period. Plant Cell Physiol. 2022 Apr 19; 63(4):450-462.. View in PubMed
  • HNF4A defines tissue-specific circadian rhythms by beaconing BMAL1::CLOCK chromatin binding and shaping the rhythmic chromatin landscape. Nat Commun. 2021 11 03; 12(1):6350.. View in PubMed
  • Two bHLH transcription factors, bHLH48 and bHLH60, associate with phytochrome interacting factor 7 to regulate hypocotyl elongation in Arabidopsis. Cell Rep. 2021 05 04; 35(5):109054.. View in PubMed
  • Clocking cancer: the circadian clock as a target in cancer therapy. Oncogene. 2021 May; 40(18):3187-3200.. View in PubMed