Dr. Azra Raza is a Professor at Columbia University. Here we talk about current position, growing up, acquisition of education, original dream, and more, part 1.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your current position?
Dr. Azra Raza: My position is Professor of Medicine and Director of Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) Center at Columbia University.
Jacobsen: What positions have you held in your academic career?
Raza: I earned the appointment of Full Professor at Rush University in Chicago (Age 39). Subsequently, the University of Chicago appointed me the Charles Arthur Weaver Professor of Cancer Research. The Department of Medicine created a Division of Myeloid Diseases, where I was first Director. I moved in 2004 to the University of Massachusetts as Director of Hematology and Oncology. They gave me the Gladys Smith Martin Chair in Oncology. I have been in New York since 2007. Presently, I direct the MDS Center at Columbia University.
Jacobsen: Where did you grow up? How do you think this influenced your career direction?
Raza: I grew up in Pakistan. This greatly influenced my career and life. Post-graduate work in Science was non-existent. I entered medical school as a tangential way of becoming involved in Molecular Biology. However, once I began seeing patients, I knew that I would never give that up. This led me to the idea of doing translational research. When I felt ready to graduate medical school, it had become abundantly clear to me, even after those three years of clinical work, that if I stayed back in Pakistan, I would not be practicing translational research, but would have no choice other than to become an activist. The conditions under which an impoverished population faces disease are such that one has few other options. I felt that way. Here, I came to understand my primary duty – sincerity to my passion: Science. In a way, I took to heart the advice of Polonius to Laertes:
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
(Shakespeare, HAMLET, Act I, Scene III).
Jacobsen: Where did you acquire your education?
Raza: Pakistan.
Jacobsen: What was your original dream?
Raza: I became obsessed with ants at a very young age, maybe 4 years old. I used to lie for hours and watch them zip in and out of their little holes in long hot summer afternoons in Karachi and imagine their lives. I constructed imaginary homes for them and social lives complete with romance and all. As I grew and read about biology, I obsessed over Darwin and Freud. In fact, I obtained the first position in my pre-medical examination by scoring high during the viva part of the test, when I engaged the external examiners in a heated debate over Darwinian versus Lamarckian theories of evolution and showing why I was a die hard Darwinian at the ripe old age of 16. If I had grown up in the West, I feel confident I would be a scientist, and not a physician, but I had no way of following my dreams there. Medical School was the only option to study Biology. So I went to Medical School.
Jacobsen: What have been your major areas of research?
Raza: I have focused extremely on studying the biology and pathology of myeloid malignancies since the start of my career, even before I started my Residency. This happened because I had come to the US soon after graduation from Medical School and had six months before the start of my Fellowship. I started working at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RCPI) in Buffalo New York, where I started working with Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients. On completion of my Residency, I returned to RPCI for my Fellowship and stayed on as a faculty member for another 6 years. During this period, I had an experience with a patient who had acute myeloid leukemia (AML) which had evolved from a prior MDS or a pre-leukemia. This made me interested in MDS. As a Fellow and young Faculty member, I defined the Cell Cycle Kinetics of Myeloid Leukemia cells in vivoin both MDS and AML by developing a novel technique of studying cellular proliferation directly in patients. These studies led to a startling revelation that the low blood counts in MDS patients were not because of bone marrow failure. Rather paradoxically, the marrow was in a hyper-proliferative state. This led to the logical examination of rate of cell death and we were able to resolve the paradox by showing that the majority of hematopoietic cells in the marrow were undergoing a suicidal self-destruction by apoptosis. Further, this cell death appeared mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines, especially tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Next, we treated MDS patients with the anti-TNF drug thalidomide, which produced complete responses in 20% patients. Thus, over a course of 10 years, we were able to develop biologic insights into the disease that translated into a novel treatment strategy.
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Original publication on www.in-sightjournal.com.
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Image Credit: Getty Images.