Ravi Amaravadi

Ravi Amaravadi is the foremost clinical researcher advancing hydroxychloroquine and next-generation lysosomal autophagy inhibitors as cancer therapeutics, leading multiple clinical trials combining autophagy inhibition with standard chemotherapy and targeted agents. He identified palmitoyl-protein thioesterase 1 (PPT1) as a critical lysosomal target and developed DC661, a dimeric chloroquine compound with vastly improved autophagy inhibition potency. His clinical trials have demonstrated that hydroxychloroquine can enhance tumor responses to BRAF inhibition in melanoma and to gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer. His work has established the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic framework for autophagy inhibition in patients.