M. Raza Zaidi, PhD

Dr. Zaidi received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University (NJ), followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). The overarching goal of Dr. Zaidi’s research program is to understand the molecular underpinnings of cutaneous pathogenesis with a specific focus on delineating the molecular mechanisms of ultraviolet radiation (UVR)-induced melanomagenesis. Within this context, his laboratory has explored the basic biology of melanoblast/melanocyte development and migration, melanin biogenesis, and inflammatory and immunosuppressive responses to UVR exposure in the skin microenvironment. Although the major risk factor for melanoma is long known to be the exposure to UVR, the molecular underpinnings of this causal relationship remain ambiguous. Despite UVR being a mutagen, and strong evidence linking UVR signature mutations to melanoma, several lines of evidence suggest that there is no straight line between UVR-induced DNA mutations and melanoma and that non-mutational mechanisms play important roles in melanomagenesis. Thus, a major focus of Dr. Zaidi’s research program is to elucidate and delineate these UVR-mediated non-mutational mechanisms. Dr. Zaidi previously made a seminal discovery of a paradoxical pro-melanomagenic role of the conventionally anti-tumor Interferon-gamma (IFNG) cytokine pathway (Zaidi et al., Nature 2011). The latest research from his laboratory has provided in vivo experimental evidence of the pro-melanomagenic role of IFNG signaling (Zhou et al., Oncogene 2023) and evidence of IFNG being a novel instigator of the pigmentation pathway in melanocytes (Mo et al., Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research 2022). He has also made contributions to the understanding of the differences between the melanomagenic effects of UVA and UVB wavebands (Noonan, Zaidi, et al., Nature Communications 2012). His laboratory has also reported the mechanism of gene regulation of CTLA4, which is the target of the first-ever FDA-approved immunotherapy, in melanoma cells (Mo et al., Cancer Research 2018). Currently ongoing research in the Zaidi Lab is delineating novel oncogenic functions of CTLA4 in melanoma.