• Department of Pathology
  • Pathology Staff
• Department of Laboratory Medicine
  • Laboratory Medicine Staff
• Affiliated Hospitals
  • Moffitt-Long
  • Mount Zion Medical Center
  • San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center
  • San Francisco General
• Faculty
  • Pathology
  • Laboratory Medicine

Research and Clinical Interests

My laboratory wishes to understand the role and regulation of autophagy in epithelial homeostasis and cancer pathogenesis. Autophagy is a genetically-controlled catabolic process through which a cell “eats itself” during times of stress or starvation. Autophagy has important therapeutic implications for numerous human diseases, including cancer, yet how this fundamental process influences cancer progression remains unclear. Using in vitro and in vivo approaches, our goals are to investigate the role and regulation of autophagy in:

1. Epithelial cell fate and oncogenic transformation
2. Chemotherapeutic response in cancer cells
3. Tissue homeostasis and tumor formation

Selected Publications

• J. Debnath, Mills, K., Collins, N., Reginato, M., Muthuswamy, S., and Brugge, J. The Role Of Apoptosis In Creating and Maintaining Luminal Space Within Normal and Oncogene-Expressing Mammary Acini. Cell. 111: 29-40. (2002).
• J. Debnath, Muthuswamy, S., and Brugge, J. Morphogenesis and Oncogenesis of MCF-10A Mammary Epithelial Acini Grown In Three-Dimensional Basement Membrane Cultures. Methods. 30: 256-268. (2003).
• J. Debnath, Walker, S. and Brugge, J. Akt Activation Disrupts Mammary Acinar Architecture and Enhances Proliferation In An mTOR Dependent Manner. J. Cell Biol. 163: 315-326. (2003).
• J. Debnath, Baehrecke, E., and Kroemer, G. Does Autophagy Contribute to Cell Death? Autophagy. 1(2): 66-74. (2005).
• J. Debnath and Brugge, J. Modeling Glandular Epithelial Cancers in 3D Cultures. Nat. Rev. Cancer. 5:675-688 (2005).

Selected Awards

• 2000 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship For Physicians.
• 2003 National Cancer Institute Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award (KO8).
• 2006 Charles E. Culpeper Scholarship in Medical Sciences.
• 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Physician-Scientist Early Career Award.
• 2006 American Association of Cancer Research-Genentech BioOncology Career Award.

• Assistant Professor
• Pathology
• Cancer Research

Specialty Area

Cancer Research

Contact Information

• jayanta.debnath@ucsf.edu
• Phone: (415) 476-1780
• Fax: (415) 514-3165

• 513 Parnassus Avenue
• Room HSW-514, Box 0511
• San Francisco, CA 94143-0511

Other UCSF Organizational Association(s)

Member

• Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program
• UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center

Hospital Affiliation(s)

• Moffitt-Long