The EMJ Podcast | Episode 213
Azra Raza, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) Center at Columbia University in New York, joins Jonathan Sackier to discuss her mission to shift the field of oncology, ensuring it focuses on eliminating the first cancer cell rather than chasing after the last.
Spotify | Apple | Amazon Music | Download MP3 (61:02 mins)
Speaker bio:
Azra Raza is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) Center at Columbia University in New York. Raza was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and became interested in biology and evolution as a child. As a result, she completed her undergraduate medical education at Dow Medical College in Pakistan and became a professor at Rush University in Chicago. Before moving to New York, Azra was the Chief of Hematology Oncology and the Gladys Smith Martin Professor of Oncology at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester.
Raza’s research defined the cell cycle kinetics of myeloid leukemia cells in myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia through studying cellular proliferation in patients. Her work later led researchers to believe that low blood counts were not a result of bone marrow failure, but instead a hyper-proliferative state in the marrow tissue. Raza has more recently developed a tissue bank of cancer patients that contains several thousand specimens of patient tissue for her research; she uses the samples to identify treatment programs through genetic testing.
