CRI Fellow Dr. Kamir Hiam-Galvez Shares a Day in His Life on CRI’s Twitter

Cancer researchers are ordinary people, but with special degrees and a mission to save more lives. So, when it comes the life of a scientist, the morning may look like ours—some music and coffee—but the day is spent breaking new ground in the lab.

On Friday, June 25, 2021, CRI Postdoctoral Fellow Kamir J. Hiam-Galvez, Ph.D., at Stanford University (who regularly tweets from @InflammatoryDC) took over the Cancer Research Institute’s Twitter account (@CancerResearch). Throughout his takeover, he shared insights about his work to improve our knowledge of CD4+ “helper” T cells in killing cancer cells.

Dr. Hiam-Galvez started his morning off with a pleasant combination: coffee and vinyl. He mentioned his time spent outside of science includes collecting records and listening to 60s/70s South American music.

Before going to lab today, I started my morning with coffee and vinyl. Outside of science I’m obsessed with music and collecting records. I’m particularly fascinated w/ South American music from the 60s/70s and this is a great 1972 record from Brazilian legend Jorge Ben. #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/aq1yPyySdq

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

He also took a moment to recognize CRI’s new DEI initiative in expanding accessibility through Spanish translation of resources. In that spirit, he also translated several of his tweets throughout the day.

I'm so honored to be funded by this organization and want to again reiterate that I think expanding the languages that science is communicated in is a key DEI initiative in STEM as detailed by this paper from @AnaMaPorras & @mcmsharksxx: https://t.co/FkbWpMYmUB

— Kamir Hiam-Galvez (@InflammatoryDC) June 25, 2021

Now on to the science! He shared a fun fact with the community about T cells and their role in killing tumor cells.

One of the most important things T cells do in cancer is directly kill tumor cells. Usually this killing is done by CD8 “killer” T cells but sometimes CD4 “helper” T cells can also eradicate tumors as shown in this classic Jim Allison paper: https://t.co/8s2w6K0l4D #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/7xRzSeUUBn

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

He also explained an exciting task of isolating T cells to transfer into laboratory mice. He leaves the cells to recognize the tumor, then takes the cells back out to map their trajectory. 

Today I’m isolating T cells using these chonky purple magnets. Then, I’ll transfer these cells into mice with tumors, allow the cells to recognize the tumor, then take the cells back out to map the full journey these cells took to acquire the power to kill cancer cells. #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/hYDo4fj50X

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

In the afternoon, he was joined by Frank (@buquicchioli), a Ph.D. student, for sorting and preparing for more experiments.

Science is a team sport! Today an outstanding PhD student @buquicchioli is helping me sort T cells from a previous experiment and grow more tumor cells for future experiments! #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/o1mHpyUIiq

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

He is grateful to work among an extraordinary team of scientists at the laboratory of CRI Tech Impact Awardee Dr. Ansu Satpathy.

I’m very fortunate to work in a lab with a brilliant bunch of inspiring interdisciplinary scientists under the guidance of @satpathology. Here is most of the group at a recent happy hour! #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/sACiBIdeAz

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

Life in the lab requires a fair share of paperwork, too. Dr. Hiam-Galvez showcased one assignment: choosing an article to present with Public Journal Club (@publicjournalc).

Now I’m sifting through new papers for an article to present with @publicjournalc, an initiative aiming to make cutting-edge science accessible to the whole world through English & Spanish background lectures and discussions with the authors of high impact papers! #CIM21 pic.twitter.com/8vS3RqBy5n

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 25, 2021

Dr. Hiam-Galvez's interest in immunology sparked after a conversation with Matthew Spitzer (@Spitzerlab) during his first year of doctoral studies. No longer intent on studying developmental biology, he was enraptured by the interactions between immune cells and tumors/pathogens throughout his Ph.D. program.

I first got interested in immunology by randomly sitting next to @Spitzerlab for dinner at a retreat in my 1st year of PhD. I actually intended to study developmental biology but his lab sounded pretty interesting so I decided to take a chance and rotate in his lab. #CIM21

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 26, 2021

Before signing off, Dr. Hiam-Galvez shared a graphic by @TeamSciStories to help followers imagine the journey of T cells that he'd been working on mapping that day.

I’ll now sign off and leave you with this beautiful graphic by @TeamSciStories. Here you can visualize the concept of tracing of single T cell clones across time and space during an immune response! Thanks for following along and supporting immunology research! pic.twitter.com/X4yddtxAlm

— Cancer Research Institute (@CancerResearch) June 26, 2021

Follow Dr. Kamir Hiam-Galvez on Twitter at @InflammatoryDC or review his full day in a Twitter moment.