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May 4, 2026 - By Ashley Han - Cancer always seems to break the rules — defying normal biology and finding new ways to survive, grow, and spread.
That ability fascinated Rushika M. Perera, PhD, when she was younger. It’s what originally attracted her to cell biology — and ultimately, to discovering how one of the deadliest cancers accomplishes that feat.
Perera, the Deborah Cowan Professor and vice chair of the Department of Anatomy, and chief scientific officer of UCSF’s Pancreas Center, shared her insights April 16 when she presented the 2026 Byers Award Lecture in Basic Science. The award, hosted by the Sandler Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research (PBBR), supports high-risk, high-reward science that can lead to innovative discoveries. It is considered one of UCSF’s highest honors for early- and mid-career scientists.
Perera studies pancreatic cancer, a disease known for spreading quickly and evading treatment. She looks deep inside the cell at a structure called the lysosome to understand how the cancer fuels itself.
“Pancreatic cancer cells get their nutrients in very unconventional ways, making them highly adaptable,” Perera said. “Understanding how the lysosome drives this adaptability and reshapes metabolism during disease progression could help us uncover its vulnerabilities.”
Her work is changing how scientists understand pancreatic cancer and is creating new possibilities for cutting off the disease’s fuel supply. Perera found that the lysosome, once thought to simply break down cellular material, is a central hub that also repurposes nutrients, making pancreatic cancer cells professional nutrient scavengers.
A new way to understand pancreatic cancer
Perera’s path to UCSF spans four countries and multiple scientific disciplines, guided by her willingness to take risks and pursue answers to difficult questions.
Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Hong Kong and Australia, Perera first came to the United States for a summer research opportunity at Yale University while pursuing her PhD at the University of Melbourne. That experience proved transformative, leading her to a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining UCSF in 2015.
Her laboratory seeks to understand why pancreatic cancer is so aggressive, by looking beyond genetics to how cancer cells fuel themselves. One of her most striking findings involves cholesterol.
“Every cell needs cholesterol, so we wanted to understand how cancer growth and spread depend on taking up cholesterol or synthesizing it,” Perera said. “While we can’t completely block these processes in humans, studying them helps us understand the pathways that drive tumor behavior.”
Pancreatic cancer cells preferentially take up cholesterol from their environment but can fall back on producing it themselves if needed, making them more efficient and adaptable. This process is tightly controlled by the lysosome and linked to key growth signals that tell cells when to divide.
This ability gives tumors a crucial advantage as they spread to new organs. By rewiring how they use nutrients, cancer cells gain a powerful advantage: the ability to spread more easily throughout the body. That advantage may also hold the key to new treatments. This focus on adaptation is central to Perera’s research and the topic of her Byers Award Lecture.
The fuel behind bold science
Don’t be afraid to ask difficult questions and to take that leap of faith, because even if your idea is only partly correct, there’s still important knowledge to be gained.
Rushika M. Perera, PhD
Established through the generosity of Brook and Shawn Byers, the Byers Award program provides flexible funding that allows scientists to pursue bold ideas and forge new collaborations. Brook Byers is a longtime UCSF supporter and a Lifetime Member of the UCSF Foundation Board of Directors.
“It’s easy to support science when it’s people like Rushika,” he said. “One of the great joys of being a donor at UCSF is getting to meet scientists, hear about their work and their journeys, and build lasting relationships as that research evolves.”
Since 1997, PBBR has supported more than 1,100 investigators whose discoveries have resulted in nearly $1.9 billion in funding for scientific research and almost $500 million in direct support for UCSF. It has also generated close to 4,100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and more than 130 patents.
UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor, emphasized the importance of this kind of investment in basic science.
“Thirty-one years ago, Brook, his wife, Shawn, and his family established this lectureship, which has become a symbol of scientific excellence,” Hawgood said. “It remains one of the most prominent ways we underscore the importance of curiosity-driven fundamental science at UCSF and beyond.”
From discovery to treatment
Instead of targeting tumors directly, scientists may be able to cut off their energy supply by blocking pathways that allow cancer cells to access critical nutrients, such as cholesterol.
“We’re very interested in understanding how obesity driven by high-fat, high-cholesterol diets increases cancer risk, and how interventions like GLP-1 receptor drugs may help protect against cancers like pancreatic cancer,” Perera said.
The challenge, she added, is translating these basic discoveries into therapies that can help patients, a process that requires collaboration across disciplines, from biology to drug development.
For Perera, the Byers Award represents more than recognition. Accompanied by research funding, it provides the freedom to pursue ambitious ideas, such as how diet and metabolism influence cancer risk, progression, and treatment, and whether altering nutrient availability could improve outcomes.
“The Byers Award helps increase the visibility of a devastating disease like pancreatic cancer to a broader audience,” Perera said. “I hope to use this platform to inspire other scientists who never thought about this field to pursue cancer research.”
The award will also support a graduate student jointly mentored by Perera and Daniel Southworth, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, to further investigate how the lysosome is protected and maintained — work that could reveal new drug targets.
But just as important, the award highlights a broader message.
Source: UC San Francisco