Raphael Morscher

Raphael Johannes Morscher (born 1987) is an Austrian pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist specializing in cancer metabolism and precision medicine. He holds the Prof. Dr. Max Cloëtta research position in pediatric cancer metabolism at the University of Zurich and serves as an attending physician at the University Children's Hospital Zurich. Morscher's research focuses on the metabolic regulation of protein translation and cell identity in childhood cancers, utilizing multi-omic integration and metabolic flux analysis via in vivo stable isotope tracing.

Early life and education Morscher studied human medicine at the Paracelsus Medical University (PMU) in Salzburg from 2007 to 2012. During his medical studies, he completed clinical rotations at Boston Children's Hospital, Charité Berlin, and the University Children's Hospital Zurich.

His MD thesis investigated 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase deficiency, a rare inborn error of metabolism, and supervised by Matthias Baumgartner at the University of Zurich. He graduated magna cum laude with a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the PMU in 2012.

Morscher subsequently completed his doctoral research in molecular medicine at PMU Salzburg under the supervision of Barbara Kofler. His work focused on metabolic vulnerabilities in neuroblastoma, specifically the impact of ketogenic diets and calorie restriction on tumor progression. This training was complemented by an eight-month research stay at Princeton University as a visiting student-research collaborator. In 2017, he received his PhD with the Promotio sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae, an Austrian state honor awarded for outstanding academic achievement across secondary and tertiary education.

Career and research Between 2013 and 2016, Morscher held residency and fellowship positions in human genetics at the University Clinic Salzburg and the Medical University of Innsbruck. From 2016 to 2017, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Joshua Rabinowitz at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. During this period, he studied the metabolic regulation of translation in mitochondria and contributed to the development of in vivo stable isotope tracing to quantify metabolic fluxes in living organisms.

In 2018, Morscher joined the University Children's Hospital Zurich , obtaining board certification in pediatrics in 2021. Following pediatric oncology fellowships at the Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus in France and Kispi, he was appointed as a Group Leader at the University of Zurich in 2022, where he established the Pediatric Cancer Metabolism Laboratory. Since 2024, he has served as an attending physician in pediatric oncology, focusing on solid tumors such as neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma and polyamine metabolism Morscher's team has investigated how pharmacological inhibition of polyamine biosynthesis using eflornithine can be enhanced by the dietary restriction of amino acid substrates (arginine and proline). In preclinical models, this combination altered protein translation in neuroblastoma tumors, triggering a pro-differentiation proteome that caused the cancer cells to differentiate into mature neurons, leading to tumor regression. This research, which provided evidence that skewed codon distributions may evolve in response to metabolic states, was featured as a cover article in Nature. The findings were subsequently highlighted in opinion pieces in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Cancer Discovery.

Mitochondrial translation Morscher's postdoctoral research helped identify the first folate-dependent macromolecule modification in mammals. He observed that folate-activated one-carbon units are required for tRNA methylation in mitochondria. Depletion of folates or the enzyme SHMT2 leads to ribosome stalling and impaired expression of respiratory chain enzymes.

Awards and honors 2012: Excellence Award, Paracelsus Medical University 2017: Promotio sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae, Republic of Austria 2025: Professor Dr. Max Cloëtta Research Position 2026: FIGHT KIDS CANCER & St. Baldrick's Foundation Arceci Innovation Award 2026: Georg-Friedrich-Götz-Prize

Selected publications