Dr. Brugarolas
James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. A Virginia Murchison Linthicum Scholar in Medical Research, Dr. Brugarolas is a staff member of the Departments of Developmental Biology and Internal Medicine as well as the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he is a co-leader of the Cancer Cell Networks Scientific Program.
Dr. Brugarolas received his medical degree from the University of Navarra, Spain (1993), and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998). He did an internship and residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and subsequently a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In 2003, he became an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
In 2006, Dr. Brugarolas joined UT Southwestern Medical Center to build an innovative program on kidney cancer. The goal of his program is to understand the fundamental biology of renal cancer and create a platform that brings discoveries from the laboratory into the clinic. Highlights of the research program include (i) the discovery that the BAP1 gene is inactivated in 15% of clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs), (ii) the establishment of a foundation for the first molecular genetic classification of sporadic ccRCC, (iii) the implication of the TSC1 gene as a tumor suppressor in ccRCC and a putative predictor of responsiveness to mTORC1 inhibitors clinically, (iv) the characterization of a feedback loop that links the two dominant pathways in renal cancer, (v) the identification of a novel effector of mTORC1, (vi) the development of the first animal model of renal cancer that reproduces the treatment responsiveness in patients, and (vii) the determination that mTORC1 inhibitors have activity against epithelioid angiomyolipomas.
Certified in Medical Oncology by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Brugarolas runs a kidney cancer clinic at the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and is active in multiple professional associations including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). He has served on research grant review panels of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, and the American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Claudia Adams Barr Award for Innovative Basic Cancer Research, a V Scholar Award, and a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society.
