Ralph DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D.

Ralph DeBerardinis earned a B.S. in biology from St. Joseph’s University and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He performed his Ph.D. research on mammalian retrotransposons with Haig H. Kazazian, Jr. Dr. DeBerardinis was the first trainee in the combined residency program in pediatrics and medical genetics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and received several awards for teaching and clinical care. He ultimately achieved board certification in pediatrics, medical genetics, and clinical biochemical genetics.

Dr. DeBerardinis performed postdoctoral research in Craig Thompson’s laboratory at the Penn Cancer Center from 2004 to 2007. He joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2008 and joined Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) in 2011. Dr. DeBerardinis serves as Chief of Pediatric Genetics and Metabolism at UT Southwestern and Director of CRI’s Genetic and Metabolic Disease Program.

Dr. DeBerardinis received Outstanding Investigator Awards from the National Cancer Institute in 2017 and 2023, and he was named an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2018. He received the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Medicine from The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas in 2019 and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research in 2021. Dr. DeBerardinis holds the Joel B. Steinberg, M.D. Distinguished Chair in Pediatrics, and he is a Sowell Family Scholar in Medical Research and a Robert L. Moody Faculty Scholar. In 2020, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.