James Brugarolas, M.D., Ph.D., founding Director of the Kidney Cancer Program, Principal Investigator of the UT Southwestern Kidney Cancer SPORE, is the Sherry Wigley Crow Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and a professor in Internal Medicine/ Hematology-Oncology, Cancer Biology, Genetics, Development and Disease at UT Southwestern Medical Center. A practicing physician-scientist, he received his medical degree from the University of Navarra in Spain and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He trained in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center and completed a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Discoveries from his laboratory have led to the first molecular genetic classification of the most common type of sporadic renal cancer (ccRCC), the identification of a new familial renal cancer syndrome, the development of the first genetically-engineered mouse model of ccRCC reproducing the genetics of the human disease, and the validation of HIF-2 as a therapeutic target in renal cancer.