Debra Hawes, MD

Associate Professor of Clinical Pathology

Director of Pathology Core Lab

Image of Debra Hawes, MD
Is this your profile? Click to edit

Overview

Dr. Hawes began her education by pursuing a certificate in vocational nursing from Santa Ana College followed by a BA degree in French from Cal State Fullerton. She then attended medical school, and upon graduation she was first introduced to the Keck School of Medicine as a resident in the pathology department at LAC+USC Medical Center. While in medical school, Dr. Hawes demonstrated a profound aptitude for her studies when she was awarded to the Dean’s List of Outstanding Achievement in the Basic Sciences. Currently, Dr. Hawes is an assistant professor of clinical pathology and an instructor of the Pathology Multidisciplinary Laboratories at USC. She has reviewed manuscripts for the several medical journals, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. In addition to her vast academic and clinical responsibilities, Dr. Hawes has a number of research interests, such as cancer prevention, new technology development and biologic markers of disease progression. Dr. Hawes has co-authored nearly 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and a number of book chapters and abstracts.

Publications

  • Identification of Chlamydia pneumoniae and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in Alzheimer’s disease retina. Res Sq. 2025 Jun 26.. View in PubMed
  • Identification of Chlamydia pneumoniae and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in Alzheimer’s disease retina. bioRxiv. 2025 Jun 25.. View in PubMed
  • CNS methylation classifiers may misclassify normal developing cerebellar cortex as medulloblastoma. Acta Neuropathol. 2025 Jun 23; 149(1):66.. View in PubMed
  • Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 primes group-3 medulloblastomas for cuproptosis. Cancer Cell. 2025 Jun 09; 43(6):1159-1174.e8.. View in PubMed
  • Evidence for cPLA2 activation in Alzheimer’s Disease Synaptic Pathology. bioRxiv. 2025 Apr 01.. View in PubMed
  • Correction: Clinical Efficacy of ONC201 in H3K27M-Mutant Diffuse Midline Gliomas Is Driven by Disruption of Integrated Metabolic and Epigenetic Pathways. Cancer Discov. 2025 Mar 03; 15(3):657.. View in PubMed
  • Retinal ganglion cell vulnerability to pathogenic tau in Alzheimer’s disease. Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2025 02 15; 13(1):31.. View in PubMed
  • Retinal and Optic Nerve Lesions Correspond to Amyloid in Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer’s Disease. medRxiv. 2025 Jan 22.. View in PubMed
  • Multimodal genome-wide survey of progressing and non-progressing breast ductal carcinoma in-situ. Breast Cancer Res. 2024 Dec 04; 26(1):178.. View in PubMed
  • Retinal ganglion cell vulnerability to pathogenic tau in Alzheimer’s disease. bioRxiv. 2024 Sep 21.. View in PubMed