M. Ilyas Kamboh

Prof. Dr. M. Ilyas Kamboh is a Pakistani-American Professor and chair of the Department Of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. He holds a secondary position as a professor of psychiatry in the Pitt School of Medicine.

Education

Dr Kamboh received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1976 and Master of Science degree in 1979 from Government College, Lahore, University of the Punjab , Pakistan with high distinction. He obtained his doctorate (Ph.D) in human genetics in 1984 from Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia, in 1984.

At Pittsburgh

After finishing his doctoral work at Australian National University, Dr Kamboh moved to USA. He began his academic career at the University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania in 1985 as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department ofHuman Genetics, and then rapidly rose through the academic ranks in the department to become tenured professor in 1997.

Research Interests and activities

Dr Kamboh is a molecular geneticist/genetic epidemiologist and the director of a human genetics molecular laboratory. He has more than 20 years of experience working on the genetics of common diseases of public heath importance, including coronary artery disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and lupus. Over the past several years, Dr. Kamboh has been especially instrumental in identifying and characterizing Alzheimer’s disease candidate genes. He has also assembled one of the largest and most powerful Alzheimer’s disease samples for use in population-based studies of genetics.

Kamboh’s research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1991 and thus far he has received grant awards worth more than $20 million. Dr Kamboh is world renowned scientist and has published more than 230 scientific articles about his research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Recently, he completed an amazing feat in being awarded an unprecedented 1.0 score (perfection!) on his most recent NIH grant proposal on the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. Kamboh has supervised the thesis/dissertation work of more than two dozen master’s and doctoral students and also mentored several postdoctoral fellows in his lab.

Fellowships/Memberships

Kamboh is a fellow of the American Heart Association and a founding member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Alzheimer’s CURE Foundation. He is also a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society, Omicron Chapter. He has served on and led a number of National Institutes of Health Study Sections, including serving as a charter member on the Cardiovascular and Sleep Epidemiology (formerly Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases) Study Section. He has served on the editorial boards of Ethnicity and Disease and Human Biology journals and is currently Associate Editor of the Annals of Human Genetics.

See also

  • Kamboj
  • Kambojas