James DeCaprio, MD

Dr. James DeCaprio is a Medical Oncologist, Principal Investigator and Professor of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. After earning his medical degree with Honors from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Dr. DeCaprio completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospital and Clinics. He subsequently completed his clinical fellowship training in Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of David M. Livingston. He started his own laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 1992.

Dr. DeCaprio’s laboratory focuses on understanding the cooperative interactions between DNA tumor viruses and cellular host proteins that conspire to transform cells. This work has illuminated the still complex and incompletely understood transforming mechanism of this family of viruses. As part of his effort to discover cellular factors that bind to viral oncogenes, Dr. DeCaprio’s laboratory discovered the mammalian DREAM protein complex and determined that DREAM serves as the master coordinator of cell cycle-dependent gene expression. Currently, his laboratory studies the contribution of Merkel cell polyomavirus to the highly aggressive and frequently lethal skin cancer Merkel cell carcinoma.