Oct. 1, 2017:
Investigator Spotlight
Hamid Band, MD, PhD, Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center
Educational background: M.D. Medical College, Srinagar,, Kashmir University, India; Ph.D. Immunology, All-India Insitute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
Research interests: Our research focuses on two major topics, both geared to understand, and potentially target, the intracellular traffic of cell surface receptors coupled to activation of tyrosine kinase signaling: the CBL-family of ubiquitin ligases, which provides an essential mechanism of negative regulation of receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases through ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal and lysosomal degradation; and members of the EHD family of endocytic regulatory proteins, which control subcellular traffic of cell surface receptors involved in a variety of fundamental cellular processes. We use mouse genetic models, cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biology approaches to investigate the roles of these protein families in the context of epithelial (mammary and intestinal) and hematopoietic stem cell homeostasis, immune responses in cancer, and tumor progression and metastasis in breast cancer and myeloid leukemia. A newer interest in the laboratory is on cancer immunology, with a focus on enhancing the efficacy of CAR T-cell immunotherapy of solid tumors.
Little-known facts about Dr. Band:
- As a child, I walked a mile and a quarter each way to attend middle school, rain or shine. Thank God, they gave us six weeks off in winter.
- In 1980/1981, I applied to Ph.D. programs at five U.S. universities and was rejected by all. About eight years later (three years after receiving my official Ph.D. degree from India), I accepted my first Ph.D. student and taught a course in immunology at one of those universities — Harvard.
- Except for Wheatfield’s Bakery in Omaha, I rarely buy foods without scanning the nutritional information on the package.
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