Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher Xiang-Xi Michael Xu, Ph.D., who is also a professor of cell biology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, discovered Dab2 more than 20 years ago and has been studying its relationship to cancer ever since. But now he's found that Dab2 has been living a secret life all along - one that could have public health implications for fighting obesity.

Sometimes proteins do a lot more than we expect. Dab2, for example, has long been linked to cancer.