John Prensner, MD, PHD

University of Michigan – Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Biological Chemistry

Dr. Pensner joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 2023. His lab focuses on the molecular basis of cancer, with a particular interest in pediatric brain cancers. His work uses high-throughput approaches to study RNA processing, RNA translation, and proteomics in cancer. His group also focuses on activation of the non-coding genome in cancer, resulting in RNA translation of non-canonical open reading frames. The goal is to use this information for improved therapeutics and drug development in cancer.

Dr. Prensner earned his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Michigan Medical School. His PhD focused on long noncoding RNAs in cancer. He then completed a residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital & Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He conducted post-doctoral research with Dr. Todd Golub at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he developed approaches to discover and characterize non-canonical translation in cancer.