Bill McBride

Honorary Member 2018

Dr. William H. McBride is a distinguished emeritus professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his undergraduate degree in Zoology in 1966 and post-graduate degrees in Immunology from Edinburgh University in 1971 (Ph.D.) and 1987 (D.Sc.). While a lecturer in the Medical School he spent several sabbaticals in the Division of Experimental Radiotherapy, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston where he was educated in radiobiology under the mentorship of H. Withers and L. Milas. He eventually moved to UCLA in 1984 to join Dr. Withers in building a nationally-renowned radiation biology research division. Perhaps inevitably, his research has woven immunological concepts into understanding of radiation responses by normal tissues and tumors, in particular the response of the immune system as it senses “danger” from radiation-damaged tissues. In the early 1990s he explored the use of gene therapy approaches in cancer to achieve the combined goals of amplifying both anti-tumor immunity and radiation cure rates. He has been involved in immunotherapy clinical trials extending back to early days of C. parvum, through dendritic cell vaccines to, most recently, anti-TGF- with radiation therapy. For the past 15 years he has been the lead P.I. of the NIAID-funded UCLA Center for Medical Countermeasures for Radiation that aims to develop mitigators of radiation damage to normal tissues. He has generated more than 400 peer-reviewed papers, many patents, and has taken on multiple leading administrative roles, including within the Radiation Research Society, in NIH grant review, and in the office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research at UCLA where he was in charge of restructuring faculty committees dealing with radiation and animal safety. Among his awards are the Failla Gold Medal Award in 2003 and the Gold Medal from the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in 2010.

« Back