Javier Garcia Bermudez, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

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Javier Garcia-Bermudez received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the same university, studying the role of mitochondrial respiration in cancer progression and stem cell differentiation. In 2016, Dr. Garcia-Bermudez joined Dr. Kivanc Birsoy’s laboratory at The Rockefeller University as an European Molecular Biology Organization Long-Term Fellow and a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellow. His postdoctoral work uncovered critical metabolic dependencies of cancers exposed to low oxygen and lipid peroxidation stress.

Dr. Garcia-Bermudez joined the faculty of Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern in December 2021. He is a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas scholar and has received a transition award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI-NIH) to support his studies on metabolic liabilities of tumors.

• Cancer Metabolism
• Hypoxia
• Lipid Metabolism
• Oxidative Stress

Featured Publications

Adaptive stimulation of macropinocytosis overcomes aspartate limitation in cancer cells under hypoxia

Garcia-Bermudez J, Prasad S, Baudrier L, Badgley MA, Liu Y, La K, Soula M, Williams RT, Yamaguchi N, Hwang RF, Taylor LJ, Stanchina ES, Rostandy B, Alwaseem H, Molina H, Bar-Sagi B, Birsoy K. bioRxiv 2021

Metabolic determinants of cancer cell sensitivity to canonical ferroptosis inducers.

Soula M, Weber RA, Zilka O, Alwaseem H, La K, Yen F, Molina H, Garcia-Bermudez J, Pratt DA, Birsoy K, Nat Chem Biol 2020 12 16 12 1351-1360

Squalene accumulation in cholesterol auxotrophic lymphomas prevents oxidative cell death.

Garcia-Bermudez J, Baudrier L, Bayraktar EC, Shen Y, La K, Guarecuco R, Yucel B, Fiore D, Tavora B, Freinkman E, Chan SH, Lewis C, Min W, Inghirami G, Sabatini DM, Birsoy K, Nature 2019 03 567 7746 118-122

Aspartate is a limiting metabolite for cancer cell proliferation under hypoxia and in tumours.

Garcia-Bermudez J, Baudrier L, La K, Zhu XG, Fidelin J, Sviderskiy VO, Papagiannakopoulos T, Molina H, Snuderl M, Lewis CA, Possemato RL, Birsoy K, Nat Cell Biol 2018 07 20 7 775-781

• CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research
  (2021-2024)
• NIH K99/R00: Pathway to Transition Award
  (2020-2024)

• Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (2021)
• Pediatrics (2021)