Assistant Professor
Endowed Title: Sowell Family Scholar in Medical Research
Department: Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UTSW, Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth & Development, Pediatrics
Graduate Programs: Cancer Biology
Ralph DeBerardinis was born, raised and educated in the Philadelphia area, earning a B.S. in Biology from St. Joseph’s University (summa cum laude) in 1992, and MD and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. For his thesis work with Dr. Haig H. Kazazian at Penn, Dr. DeBerardinis studied L1 retrotransposons in the mouse and human genomes and determined several aspects of their impact on genome fluidity and evolution. After finishing his MD-PhD training, Dr. DeBerardinis stayed in Philadelphia to become the first trainee in the combined residency program in Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), receiving several awards for teaching and clinical care and ultimately achieving board certification in Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Clinical Biochemical Genetics. Dr. DeBerardinis served as an attending physician for two years in the Section of Biochemical Genetics at CHOP. Dr. DeBerardinis performed post-doctoral research training in the laboratory of Craig B. Thompson, MD in the Penn Cancer Center from 2004-2007, where he explored the connections between cellular signal transduction and core metabolic pathways in proliferating cells. These studies led to several novel observations connecting growth factor signaling with specific metabolic activities, including glycolysis, glutaminolysis, the Krebs cycle and the synthesis and degradation of fatty acids. These observations raised the possibility that different oncogenic signaling pathways regulate distinct aspects of cellular metabolism, arguing for metabolic synergy among the mutations that cause cancer. In 2008, Dr. DeBerardinis moved to Dallas to join the faculty of the University of Texas - Southwestern Medical Center as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics. His lab continues to focus on integrating cellular signal transduction and metabolism during both normal cell proliferation and tumorigenesis. He is also an attending physician in the Division of Pediatric Genetics and Metabolism at Children’s Medical Center, where he is involved in the diagnosis and care of children with inborn errors of metabolism.
DeBerardinis Laboratory website: http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/McDermottLab/deB/deB_index.htm
| Medical School | University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (2000) |
| Residency | Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (2005) |
Featured Publications
Reductive carboxylation supports growth in tumour cells with defective mitochondria.
Mullen AR, Wheaton WW, Jin ES, Chen PH, Sullivan LB, Cheng T, Yang Y, Linehan WM, Chandel NS, Deberardinis RJ Nature 2011 Nov
Pyruvate carboxylase is required for glutamine-independent growth of tumor cells.
Cheng T, Sudderth J, Yang C, Mullen AR, Jin ES, Matés JM, DeBerardinis RJ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2011 May 108 21 8674-9
Yang C, Sudderth J, Dang T, Bachoo RM, Bachoo RG, McDonald JG, DeBerardinis RJ Cancer Res. 2009 Oct 69 20 7986-93
The biology of cancer: metabolic reprogramming fuels cell growth and proliferation.
DeBerardinis RJ, Lum JJ, Hatzivassiliou G, Thompson CB Cell Metab. 2008 Jan 7 1 11-20
DeBerardinis RJ, Mancuso A, Daikhin E, Nissim I, Yudkoff M, Wehrli S, Thompson CB Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2007 Dec 104 49 19345-50
Serine metabolism: some tumors take the road less traveled.
DeBerardinis RJ Cell Metab. 2011 Sep 14 3 285-6
Haem oxygenase is synthetically lethal with the tumour suppressor fumarate hydratase.
Frezza C, Zheng L, Folger O, Rajagopalan KN, MacKenzie ED, Jerby L, Micaroni M, Chaneton B, Adam J, Hedley A, Kalna G, Tomlinson IP, Pollard PJ, Watson DG, Deberardinis RJ, Shlomi T, Ruppin E, Gottlieb E Nature 2011 Sep 477 7363 225-8
Role of glutamine in cancer: therapeutic and imaging implications.
Rajagopalan KN, DeBerardinis RJ J. Nucl. Med. 2011 Jul 52 7 1005-8
Kucejova B, Sunny NE, Nguyen AD, Hallac R, Fu X, Peña-Llopis S, Mason RP, Deberardinis RJ, Xie XJ, Debose-Boyd R, Kodibagkar VD, Burgess SC, Brugarolas J Oncogene 2011 May 30 18 2147-60
Measurement of glycine in the human brain in vivo by (1) H-MRS at 3 T: application in brain tumors.
Choi C, Ganji SK, Deberardinis RJ, Dimitrov IE, Pascual JM, Bachoo R, Mickey BE, Malloy CR, Maher EA Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 2011 Mar 609-18