James Brugarolas, MD, PhD

Biography

James Brugarolas, MD, PhD, is a tenured Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW). He is the Sherry Wigley Crow Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and the Founding Director of the Kidney Cancer Program, one of two recognized by the NCI with a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) award. Spanning the spectrum from fundamental to clinical research, discoveries from his laboratory identified kidney cancer driver genes, set the foundation for a genetic classification of the most common type (ccRCC), led to the development of mouse models reproducing ccRCC and tRCC, and identified the first core dependency. His team was involved in advancing a first-in-class HIF-2 inhibitor developed at UTSW (belzutifan) by validating HIF-2 as a target in kidney cancer and through the identification of putative biomarkers and mechanisms of resistance. A member of the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the NCI Renal Cancer Task Force, Dr. Brugarolas serves as Deputy Director and chair of the scientific advisory board of the Academy of Kidney Cancer Investigators. Following a residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center, he completed a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he trained with Nobel Laureate William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD. He holds an M.D. from the University of Navarra and a PhD. from MIT, where he trained with Tyler Jacks, PhD.