Suresh V. Ambudkar, Ph.D., Senior Investigator and Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Cell Biology
Suresh V. Ambudkar, Ph.D., is a Senior Investigator and the Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Cell Biology. He is originally from India, where he completed his undergraduate and Ph.D. studies before immigrating to the United States. For this Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Q&A, he answers some questions about his transition from basic biology to cancer research, his advice to those who are seeking mentors, and his thoughts about his son Utkarsh Ambudkar’s career as a movie star.
Can you give us an overview of your work at CCR?
I've been working on problems in chemotherapy for cancer patients. About 50 percent of cancer patients who go through chemotherapy develop resistance, meaning that the treatment stops working for them. One of the main reasons is that some cancer cells have transport proteins that can help them develop resistance to chemotherapy. Our goal is to understand the mechanism of drug transport by these proteins and increase the efficiency of chemotherapy.
How did you come to drug resistance in cancer at the CCR?
It was actually an interesting development. When I was doing postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins University, I developed a technique for isolating sugar-phosphate transport proteins in bacteria and putting them in artificial membranes to study their properties. Then I got a tenure-track assistant professor position at Johns Hopkins Medical School, where I had to write grants to support my research and bring in a large portion of my salary. However, it was relatively easier to get grants if you were working on something directly disease-related, like cancer. So I decided to move into cancer because these are similar proteins from bacteria to humans and I could apply the same technique to studying cancer cells' drug resistance.
Then one day, Michael Gottesman came to Johns Hopkins to give a seminar. After the seminar, I met him and said I would like to use my technique to collaborate with him. I started working with him and Dr. Ira Pastan, and I came to NCI for a six-month sabbatical to work on multidrug transporters. Then after the sabbatical, they said, “We would really like you to have you in our group here.” And I accepted.
Why did you decide to come to the United States?
During my master's program in India, I had the opportunity to do a summer internship at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. It is the oldest institute in India, and it had one of the oldest departments of biochemistry in India. During that internship, they had professors from different universities come and present their work to us. I took notes about all the professors.
After my master’s, I first wrote to the professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. I wanted to do a Ph.D. with him, but there was an administrative delay in my application. He said, “oh, you can definitely come, but you have to wait one year.” And I said to myself, “I'm not going to wait for one year.” So I took out my notebook from my summer internship, and I wrote to about five different professors from different cities in India asking to do a Ph.D. with them. Finally, I got a telegram from one of the professors saying, “I have a fellowship for you.” It was in a city called Madurai, about 900 miles from my hometown. And I had to go travel by train, almost 36 hours. They also spoke Tamil, which was a different language than I was used to. My parents were very nervous about the opportunity. But just because of his name and his publications, I decided to join his lab.
The department I joined had all these professors who had been trained in the US. Every year, we would have conferences, and our professors would involve us as volunteers in organizing the events. We would meet all these researchers from other countries, we would take them sightseeing in Madurai and show them around. At the same time, we could get to know what their work was about.
I also met my wife Indu during the Ph.D. program. I finished two years before her, so I got a position at the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, India. For a short while, I was working on researching drought resistance in rice. Then after my wife finished her Ph.D., I got a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland, and she also got a position in the same department, so we moved to the US.
Did you experience any cultural shock coming to the US?
We didn't have much cultural shock when we arrived in Baltimore because we were already exposed to people from the US back when we were in our Ph.D. program. Additionally, I had already moved within India from my hometown to Madurai (which is in the deep south), and then I had the rice research job in Cuttack (which is on the eastern side of India). Moving around the country was a good experience. It makes you aware of the different conditions in the different environments, and how to interact with others.
In general, it’s been a very positive experience. For example, I would sometimes get a flat tire on I-695, the Baltimore Beltway, and people would stop to help change my tire. But it was different in the workplace. Sometimes people didn't believe that I was a faculty member at Hopkins. They would say to me, "What are you doing here?" or "Whose lab are you working in?" I was the only Indian person in the Renal Division in the Department of Medicine. Sometimes I had to explain who I was and why I was there. But what else can you do? You just have to educate others.
Your wife, Dr. Indu Ambudkar, is also a Senior Investigator in the Secretory Physiology Section at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). However, your son, Utkarsh, took a very different career path and became a successful actor. Did he pursue science at any point in his life?
Indu and I did very much want Utkarsh to go into science. When he was in school, he did a project in my wife’s lab where he took fresh chickens from different supermarkets and looked at their bacterial content. He grew plates and even did a poster presentation at the Montgomery County Science Fair. During high school, he did some science courses, and he was very good, but then he changed his mind.
Were you disappointed he stepped away from a career in science?
I think we were more nervous and scared. We knew that the film industry was risky in terms of having financial stability, and as a parent, we want him to be able to have a normal life and not be stressed out all the time. But that’s because of our own experiences. When we came to the US, there was nobody behind us, we didn’t have a “safety net”. But I think we decided that whatever he is passionate about, that's the best for him.
As a senior researcher now, what would you like young scientists to know when they are branching outside of themselves to collaborate and find mentors?
One thing they should know is that many researchers are actually easily approachable.
You have had an extensive career full of twists and turns, switching from bacteria to rice, and back to bacteria before coming to cancer research. Do you have anything you’d like to tell students who are currently forging their own paths?
As scientists, we try to learn constantly about new techniques and new developments, because we’re always asking new questions. So, you have to be at the cutting-edge. You have to be able to adapt and decide how you can use your training to meet the needs of wherever you are going. And with passion and hard work, you can find satisfaction.