James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D.

Director of the Kidney Cancer Program

Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Sherry Wigley Crow Cancer Research Endowed Chair in Honor of Robert Lewis Kirby, M.D.

Internal Medicine - Hematology/Oncology
Kidney Cancer
Medical Treatment of Kidney Cancer

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Biography

Download Curriculum Vitae

James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center with appointments in both the Department of Internal Medicine’s Division of Hematology/Oncology and the Department of Developmental Biology. He is a Virginia Murchison Linthicum Endowed Scholar in Medical Research.

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.

Meet Dr. Brugarolas

Kidney Cancer Specialist

Thanks in large part to the work of James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D., patients who come to UT Southwestern Medical Center for treatment of kidney cancer can access the most advanced therapies available, as well as a pipeline of promising new approaches based on a growing body of knowledge about the disease.

"Our patients are at the core of the kidney cancer program, and I’m here to assist them. I feel blessed, and privileged, that my profession as a physician allows me to care for people as their doctor."

A kidney cancer oncologist, Dr. Brugarolas leads UT Southwestern’s dedicated Kidney Cancer Program, one of only a few of its kind in the U.S. He says that patients benefit from the highly specialized care and team-approach the program offers.

“It’s important for patients to have physicians with extensive experience who are well versed with the drugs available for kidney cancer treatment and their side effects,” says Dr. Brugarolas. He specializes in the medical management of renal cell carcinoma, the most prevalent kind of kidney cancer among adults.

“We also work closely with UT Southwestern urologists, radiation oncologists, nephrologists, and many others to comprehensively care for our patients with kidney cancer and related conditions. This team approach offers great advantages to patients,” he says.

In addition to caring for patients, Dr. Brugarolas leads a busy research laboratory, where scientists are making promising advances in the understanding of how kidney cancer develops – and working to translate their discoveries into new therapies that target the disease’s molecular pathways.

Dr. Brugarolas was drawn to the specialty because he saw an opportunity to make a difference in treating a disease diagnosed in some 60,000 people in the U.S. each year – and for which there was only one FDA-approved therapy until 2005.

Education & Training

Fellowship - Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School (2001-2003), Medical Oncology
Residency - Duke University - Medicine Residency (1999-2001), Internal Medicine
Internship - Duke University - Medicine Internship (1998-1999), Internal Medicine
Graduate School - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993-1998)
Medical School - Universidad de Navarra (1987-1993)

Professional Associations & Affiliations

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

Honors & Awards

D Magazine Best Doctor 2021
Program Development Award – UT Southwestern 2019
Sherry Wigley Crow Endowed Chair in Cancer Research 2017
Elected Member 2013, American Society for Clinical Investigation
Individual Investigator Research Award 2010, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
Basil O'Connor Research Award 2007, March of Dimes
Clinical Scientist Development Award 2007, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
V Scholar Award 2007, The V Foundation for Cancer Research
Claudia Adams Barr Award for Innovative Basic Cancer Research 2003, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Young Investigator Award 2004, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Virginia Murchison Linthicum Endowed Scholar in Medical Research 2006, UT Southwestern Medical School
Research Scholar 2008, American Cancer Society

Books & Publications

Books
- Research Translation and Personalized Medicine in Renal Cell Carcinoma
  Brugarolas, J. (2012), Springer US
- mTORC1 Signaling and Hypoxia in mTOR Pathway and mTOR Inhibitors in Cancer Therapy
  Brugarolas, J (2010), Humana Press
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 discovery 2018 Jun
- 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 Clinical genitourinary cancer 2017 Jun 15 3 403-410.e2
- Molecular genetics of clear-cell renal cell carcinoma.
  Brugarolas J Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2014 Jun 32 18 1968-76
- 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 Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2017 Oct JCO2017733238
- 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 discovery 2017 May
- Multistep regulation of TFEB by MTORC1.
  Vega-Rubin-de-Celis S, Peña-Llopis S, Konda M, Brugarolas J Autophagy 2017 Jan 0
- Renal Cell Carcinoma With Pulmonary Metastasis and Metachronous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.
  Bowman IA, Pedrosa I, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Clinical genitourinary cancer 2017 Feb
- 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
- 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
- High-throughput simultaneous screen and counterscreen identifies homoharringtonine as synthetic lethal with von Hippel-Lindau loss in renal cell carcinoma.
  Wolff NC, Pavía-Jiménez A, Tcheuyap VT, Alexander S, Vishwanath M, Christie A, Xie XJ, Williams NS, Kapur P, Posner B, McKay RM, Brugarolas J Oncotarget 2015 Jul 6 19 16951-62
- Clear cell renal cell carcinoma subtypes identified by BAP1 and PBRM1 expression.
  Joseph RW, Kapur P, Serie DJ, Parasramka M, Ho TH, Cheville JC, Frenkel E, Parker AS, Brugarolas J The Journal of urology 2015 Aug
- Spectrum of diverse genomic alterations define non-clear cell renal carcinoma subtypes.
  Durinck S, Stawiski EW, Pavía-Jiménez A, Modrusan Z, Kapur P, Jaiswal BS, Zhang N, Toffessi-Tcheuyap V, Nguyen TT, Pahuja KB, Chen YJ, Saleem S, Chaudhuri S, Heldens S, Jackson M, Peña-Llopis S, Guillory J, Toy K, Ha C, Harris CJ, Holloman E, Hill HM, Stinson J, Rivers CS, Janakiraman V, Wang W, Kinch LN, Grishin NV, Haverty PM, Chow B, Gehring JS, Reeder J, Pau G, Wu TD, Margulis V, Lotan Y, Sagalowsky A, Pedrosa I, de Sauvage FJ, Brugarolas J, Seshagiri S Nature genetics 2014 Nov
- Germline BAP1 mutation predisposes to familial clear-cell renal cell carcinoma.
  Farley MN, Schmidt LS, Mester JL, Pena-Llopis S, Pavia-Jimenez A, Christie A, Vocke CD, Ricketts CJ, Peterson J, Middelton L, Kinch L, Grishin N, Merino MJ, Metwalli AR, Xing C, Xie XJ, Dahia PL, Eng C, Linehan WM, Brugarolas J Molecular cancer research : MCR 2013 May
- PDGF/VEGF Receptor Inactivation by Sunitinib Results in Tsc1/Tsc2-Dependent Inhibition of TORC1.
  Tran TA, Kinch L, Peña-Llopis S, Kockel L, Grishin N, Jiang H, Brugarolas J Molecular and cellular biology 2013 Jul
- Cooperation and Antagonism among Cancer Genes: The Renal Cancer Paradigm.
  Peña-Llopis S, Christie A, Xie XJ, Brugarolas J Cancer research 2013 Jul 73 14 4173-9
- A validated tumorgraft model reveals activity of dovitinib against renal cell carcinoma.
  Sivanand S, Peña-Llopis S, Zhao H, Kucejova B, Spence P, Pavia-Jimenez A, Yamasaki T, McBride DJ, Gillen J, Wolff NC, Morlock L, Lotan Y, Raj GV, Sagalowsky A, Margulis V, Cadeddu JA, Ross MT, Bentley DR, Kabbani W, Xie XJ, Kapur P, Williams NS, Brugarolas J Science translational medicine 2012 Jun 4 137 137ra75
- BAP1 loss defines a new class of renal cell carcinoma.
  Peña-Llopis S, Vega-Rubín-de-Celis S, Liao A, Leng N, Pavía-Jiménez A, Wang S, Yamasaki T, Zhrebker L, Sivanand S, Spence P, Kinch L, Hambuch T, Jain S, Lotan Y, Margulis V, Sagalowsky AI, Summerour PB, Kabbani W, Wong SW, Grishin N, Laurent M, Xie XJ, Haudenschild CD, Ross MT, Bentley DR, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Nature genetics 2012 Jul 44 7 751-9
- Interplay between pVHL and mTORC1 pathways in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma.
  Kucejova B, Peña-Llopis S, Yamasaki T, Sivanand S, Tran TA, Alexander S, Wolff NC, Lotan Y, Xie XJ, Kabbani W, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Molecular cancer research : MCR 2011 Sep 9 9 1255-65
- 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 The Journal of biological chemistry 2017 Apr
- Predictive Biomarkers for Molecularly Targeted Therapies in Renal Cell Carcinoma.
  Brugarolas J Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network : JNCCN 2016 Jul 14 7 925-7
- Bap1 is essential for kidney function and cooperates with Vhl in renal tumorigenesis.
  Wang SS, Gu YF, Wolff N, Stefanius K, Christie A, Dey A, Hammer RE, Xie XJ, Rakheja D, Pedrosa I, Carroll T, McKay RM, Kapur P, Brugarolas J Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2014 Nov 111 46 16538-43
- 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 urology 2017 Mar 17 1 19
- Hepatic mTORC1 Opposes Impaired Insulin Action to Control Mitochondrial Metabolism in Obesity.
  Kucejova B, Duarte J, Satapati S, Fu X, Ilkayeva O, Newgard CB, Brugarolas J, Burgess SC Cell reports 2016 Jun
- Stereotactic Radiation Therapy of Renal Cancer Inferior Vena Cava Tumor Thrombus.
  Hannan R, Margulis V, Chun SG, Cannon N, Kim DW, Abdulrahman RE, Sagalowsky A, Pedrosa I, Choy H, Brugarolas JB, Timmerman RD Cancer biology & therapy 2015 Mar 0
- Regulation of TFEB and V-ATPases by mTORC1.
  Peña-Llopis S, Vega-Rubin-de-Celis S, Schwartz JC, Wolff NC, Tran TA, Zou L, Xie XJ, Corey DR, Brugarolas J The EMBO journal 2011 Aug 30 16 3242-58
- 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 International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics 2017 May 98 1 91-100
- Succination of Keap1 and activation of Nrf2-dependent antioxidant pathways in FH-deficient papillary renal cell carcinoma type 2.
  Kinch L, Grishin NV, Brugarolas J Cancer cell 2011 Oct 20 4 418-20
- Exploring a glycolytic inhibitor for the treatment of an FH-deficient type-2 papillary RCC.
  Yamasaki T, Tran TA, Oz OK, Raj GV, Schwarz RE, Deberardinis RJ, Zhang X, Brugarolas J Nature reviews. Urology 2011 Mar 8 3 165-71
- Effects on survival of BAP1 and PBRM1 mutations in sporadic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma: a retrospective analysis with independent validation.
  Kapur P, Peña-Llopis S, Christie A, Zhrebker L, Pavía-Jiménez A, Rathmell WK, Xie XJ, Brugarolas J The lancet oncology 2013 Feb 14 2 159-67