Rushika Perera

Rushika Perera is an Associate Professor at the University of California San Francisco within the Department of Anatomy and holds secondary appointments in the Department of Pathology and the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research explores the lysosome and autophagy pathways in cellular adaptation to stress, particularly in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), focusing on mechanisms like lysosome biogenesis and immune evasion through MHC-I degradation.

• BSc in Pathology/Biochemistry, University of Melbourne (1999)
• BSc in Cancer Biology, University of Melbourne and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (2000)
• PhD in Cancer Biology, University of Melbourne and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (2007)
• Postdoctoral training in Cell Biology at Yale University (2008) and Cancer Biology at MGH Cancer Center (2013)
• Instructor in Cancer Biology at MGH Cancer Center (2015)

Her work integrates cellular trafficking, autophagy, lysosome function, and proteomics to study cancer progression, metastasis, tumor heterogeneity, and drug resistance. Recent research trends highlight lysosomal roles in immune evasion, metabolic signaling, and stress adaptation.

Scientific awards include the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, AACR NextGen STAR, and the Gunter Blobel Early Career Award. Her lab is supported by multiple NIH grants (R01CA260249, R01CA251726, R01CA240603, DP2CA216364) for projects on lysosome quality control and pancreatic cancer.

• NIH R01CA260249 (2021-2026): Dissecting lysosome quality control
• NIH R01CA251726 (2021-2026): Targeting autophagy-lysosome in pancreatic cancer
• NIH R01CA240603 (2020-2025): Molecular Drivers of Cellular Plasticity in Pancreatic Cancer
• NIH DP2CA216364 (2016-2021): Tracking tumor evolution via organelle profiling