Jason holds dual appointments as an Investigator at the Morgridge Institute for Research and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, with affiliate status in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The high-level goal of Jason’s laboratory is to understand how metabolic conditions influence the behavior of human cells, with an emphasis on genetic and environmental contributions to cell fitness and a current focus on blood cancers and normal components of immunity. Work from the Cantor laboratory has demonstrated the profound impact of nutrient availability on gene essentiality and drug sensitivity in cancer cells, producing new mechanistic insights into drug activity and the conditional roles of specific proteins in supporting cell fitness. Jason received his B.S. magna cum laude in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University before earning his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute/MIT, where he pioneered the systematic design and use of physiologic cell culture media through his development of Human Plasma-Like Medium. Jason has received numerous honors including the Margaret and Herman Sokol Postdoctoral Award from the Whitehead Institute, a K22 Career Transition Award from NIH/NCI, the Individual Biomedical Research Award from the Hartwell Foundation, and the Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society.