James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D.
Director of the Kidney Cancer Program
Professor

Download Curriculum Vitae

James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a member of its Division of Hematology/Oncology. He holds the The Sherry Wigley Crow Cancer Research Endowed Chair in Honor of Robert Lewis Kirby, M.D.

A physician-scientist specializing in renal oncology, Dr. Brugarolas leads the Kidney Cancer Program at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he also serves as Co-Leader of the Cancer Cell Networks Program and runs the Renal Cell Carcinoma Tumor Board.

Dr. Brugarolas earned his medical degree at Spain’s Universidad de Navarra before earning a doctoral degree in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center and a medical oncology fellowship at a combined program of Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. Brugarolas joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2006 with the goal of creating a comprehensive, dedicated renal oncology program. Today’s program, which comprises some 40 investigators, is closely integrated with the Brugarolas Laboratory.

He also serves as an investigator on several clinical trials.

An active national and international speaker, Dr. Brugarolas is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

He has authored groundbreaking research and published in journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Cancer Cell, Nature Genetics, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Brugarolas is also active in a variety of grant-review and teaching activities, including serving as a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the U.S. Army Medical Research Command.

In 2019, Dr. Brugarolas received UT Southwestern's Program Development Award.

Medical School

Universidad de Navarra (1993)

Other Post Graduate Training

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998)

Graduate School

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998)

Internship

Duke University - Medicine Internship (1999), Internal Medicine

Residency

Duke University - Medicine Residency (2001), Internal Medicine

Fellowship

Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School (2003), Medical Oncology

• Biomarkers
• Immunotherapy
• Kidney cancer, renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
• Molecular genetics and genomics of cancer
• Molecularly targeted therapies
• Research translation
• Signaling mechanisms and mechanisms of resistance to targeted agents

Featured Publications

An Empirical Approach Leveraging Tumorgrafts to Dissect the Tumor Microenvironment in Renal Cell Carcinoma Identifies Missing Link to Prognostic Inflammatory Factors.

Wang T, Lu R, Kapur P, Jaiswal BS, Hannan R, Zhang Z, Pedrosa I, Luke JJ, Zhang H, Goldstein LD, Yousuf Q, Gu YF, McKenzie T, Joyce A, Kim MS, Wang X, Luo D, Onabolu O, Stevens C, Xie Z, Chen M, Filatenkov A, Torrealba J, Luo X, Guo W, He J, Stawiski E, Modrusan Z, Durinck S, Seshagiri S, Brugarolas J Cancer Discov 2018 Jun

Safety and Efficacy of Stereotactic Ablative Radiation Therapy for Renal Cell Carcinoma Extracranial Metastases.

Wang CJ, Christie A, Lin MH, Jung M, Weix D, Huelsmann L, Kuhn K, Meyer J, Desai N, Kim DWN, Pedrosa I, Margulis V, Cadeddu J, Sagalowsky A, Gahan J, Laine A, Xie XJ, Choy H, Brugarolas J, Timmerman R, Hannan R Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys. 2017 May 98 1 91-100

Modeling Renal Cell Carcinoma in Mice: Bap1 and Pbrm1 Inactivation Drive Tumor Grade.

Gu YF, Cohn S, Christie A, McKenzie T, Wolff NC, Do QN, Madhuranthakam A, Pedrosa I, Wang T, Dey A, Busslinger M, Xie XJ, Hammer RE, McKay RM, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Cancer Discov 2017 May

Targeting Renal Cell Carcinoma with a HIF-2 antagonist.

Chen W, Hill H, Christie A, Kim MS, Holloman E, Pavia-Jimenez A, Homayoun F, Ma Y, Patel N, Yell P, Hao G, Yousuf Q, Joyce A, Pedrosa I, Geiger H, Zhang H, Chang J, Gardner KH, Bruick RK, Reeves C, Hwang TH, Courtney K, Frenkel E, Sun X, Zojwalla N, Wong T, Rizzi JP, Wallace EM, Josey JA, Xie Y, Xie XJ, Kapur P, McKay RM, Brugarolas J Nature 2016 Sep

Multicenter Validation of Enhancer of Zeste Homolog 2 Expression as an Independent Prognostic Marker in Localized Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Ho TH, Kapur P, Eckel-Passow JE, Christie A, Joseph RW, Serie DJ, Cheville JC, Thompson RH, Homayoun F, Panwar V, Brugarolas J, Parker AS J. Clin. Oncol. 2017 Oct JCO2017733238

Addressing metabolic heterogeneity in clear cell renal cell carcinoma with quantitative Dixon MRI.

Zhang Y, Udayakumar D, Cai L, Hu Z, Kapur P, Kho EY, Pavía-Jiménez A, Fulkerson M, de Leon AD, Yuan Q, Dimitrov IE, Yokoo T, Ye J, Mitsche MA, Kim H, McDonald JG, Xi Y, Madhuranthakam AJ, Dwivedi DK, Lenkinski RE, Cadeddu JA, Margulis V, Brugarolas J, DeBerardinis RJ, Pedrosa I JCI Insight 2017 Aug 2 15

Discontinuing VEGF-targeted Therapy for Progression Versus Toxicity Affects Outcomes of Second-line Therapies in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

De Velasco G, Xie W, Donskov F, Albiges L, Beuselinck B, Srinivas S, Agarwal N, Lee JL, Brugarolas J, Wood LA, Rha SY, Kollmannsberger C, North S, Kanesvaran R, Rini BI, Broom R, Yamamoto H, Kaymakcalan MD, Heng DYC, Choueiri TK Clin Genitourin Cancer 2017 Jun 15 3 403-410.e2

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1a activates insig-2 transcription for degradation of HMG CoA reductase in the liver.

Hwang S, Nguyen AD, Jo Y, Engelking LJ, Brugarolas J, DeBose-Boyd RA J. Biol. Chem. 2017 Apr

BAP1 and PBRM1 in metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma: tumor heterogeneity and concordance with paired primary tumor.

Eckel-Passow JE, Serie DJ, Cheville JC, Ho TH, Kapur P, Brugarolas J, Thompson RH, Leibovich BC, Kwon ED, Joseph RW, Parker AS BMC Urol 2017 Mar 17 1 19

Renal Cell Carcinoma With Pulmonary Metastasis and Metachronous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Bowman IA, Pedrosa I, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Clin Genitourin Cancer 2017 Feb

 Featured Books

mTORC1 Signaling and Hypoxia. In mTOR Pathway and mTOR Inhibitors in Cancer Therapy

Brugarolas, J (2010). Humana Press

Research Translation and Personalized Medicine. In Renal Cell Carcinoma

Brugarolas, J. (2012). Springer US

• Sherry Wigley Crow Endowed Chair in Cancer Research
  (2017)
• Elected Member
  American Society for Clinical Investigation (2013)
• Individual Investigator Research Award
  Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (2010)
• Research Scholar
  American Cancer Society (2008)
• Basil O'Connor Research Award
  March of Dimes (2007)
• Clinical Scientist Development Award
  Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (2007)
• V Scholar Award
  The V Foundation for Cancer Research (2007)
• Virginia Murchison Linthicum Endowed Scholar in Medical Research
  UT Southwestern Medical School (2006)
• Young Investigator Award
  Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School (2004)
• Claudia Adams Barr Award for Innovative Basic Cancer Research
  Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2003)

• American Society for Clinical Investigation (2013)
• American Association for Cancer Research (2006)
• American Society for Advancement of Science (2006)
• American Society of Clinical Oncology (2006)
• MIT chapter of Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society of North America (1998)