The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced the appointment of Kishor Bhatia, Ph.D., as director of the new AIDS Malignancy Program (AMP). Bhatia has served as the program director for the Cancer Diagnosis Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, since 2004 and his appointment to AMP was effective Oct. 2, 2005.

The AMP is designed to support extramural (research funded by, but not conducted at, the NCI) HIV and AIDS malignancy research. The AMP will coordinate all AIDS and AIDS oncology efforts across NCI, including the development of extramural initiatives and AIDS co-funding agreements. Existing projects that will be managed by the AMP include the AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource, the Women’s Interagency HIV Study, the Multicenter AIDS cohort study, and the AIDS International Training and research Program. The AMP also will work closely with the Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) at the NIH, providing administrative and research support for AIDS research projects.

Working together, these two programs will emphasize the importance of collaboration between disciplines and between basic and clinical investigators, research in which laboratory discoveries are translated into clinical practice, and the importance of research on prevention and behavioral change. As part of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program within the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, Bhatia will report directly to Mark Clanton, M.D., deputy director for Cancer Delivery Systems.

Bhatia worked at the NCI Pediatric Branch from 1989 through 1997 as a senior staff fellow, and as a senior staff scientist from 1997 through 2000. During that time he was also an assistant professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. From 1999 through 2004, he served as the director of the Translational Program in the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research at the Institute Louis Pasteur in Brussels, Belgium. He went on to serve as director of the research center at the Children’s Cancer Center at King Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2000 to 2004, while also teaching as an adjunct professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

Bhatia received a B.S. in microbiology from Pune University in Pune, India. He later received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Bombay in Mumbai, India; he achieved membership in the British Royal College of Pathology in 2003.

In addition to the cellular and molecular biology of cancers related to infectious disease, Bhatia also is interested in strengthening research networks in developing countries. He participated in the development of the Middle Eastern Cancer Society in 1994, and serves as a member of the NIH Working Group on Capacity Building for International Research.

"We’re very pleased to have Dr. Bhatia at the helm of this new office," said NCI Director Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D. "His work with hematologic cancers and with research organizations around the globe will be invaluable to the AIDS Malignancy Program.”

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.