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Ralph DeBerardinis is seeking new treatments for two types of human disease – cancer and pediatric inborn errors of metabolism – by investigating the metabolic dysfunctions with which they are associated. DeBerardinis and his team pair lab studies with genomic and metabolomic analyses of patients who have rare metabolic diseases to discover novel mutations that affect metabolic enzymes and to determine how those mutations disrupt tissue function. To learn how metabolism is reprogrammed by tumors and cancer progression, DeBerardinis’s team analyzes tumor samples from patients who were administered isotope-labeled nutrients shortly before their tumors were removed. By tracing the labeled molecules, they can directly assess how tumors use glucose and other fuels in the body.