Neil H. Bander

Key takeaways

Neil H. Bander belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Neil H. Bander to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Neil H. Bander from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Neil H. Bander is an American surgeon-scientist with a clinical specialty in urological oncology and a research focus in tumor immunology. He is the Bernard and Josephine Chaus Professor of Urological Oncology and Director of Urological Oncology Research at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. Bander is recognized, along with Warren (Skip) D. W. Heston, as one of the two “Founding Fathers of PSMA (Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen) Technology.”

Early life and education Bander was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Johns Hopkins University, where his senior research thesis led to a pre-doctoral research fellowship under Dr. Sidney Farber at the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation (now the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and Harvard Medical School. He earned his M.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Medical training Bander completed his general surgery residency at New York University-Bellevue Hospital Center, followed by a residency in urology at the University of Connecticut Medical Center. He then undertook an NIH Immunobiology Fellowship under Lloyd J. Old at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Near the end of this fellowship, he was offered a clinical fellowship in urological oncology by Willet F. Whitmore, Jr., also at MSKCC.

Career Following his fellowships, Bander joined Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital as their first faculty member specializing in urologic oncology. He rose through the academic ranks to become the Bernard and Josephine Chaus Professor of Urological Oncology and a member (affiliate) of the MSKCC Division of Urology. Since the mid-1990s, Bander has focused on PSMA as a target for cancer treatment. His team developed the first series of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to the extracellular domain of PSMA, including J591. This became the gold standard mAb, enabling studies of PSMA biology and tumor targeting. They identified, for the first time, that PSMA was internalized by an endocytic pathway. This opened the door to specific tumor targeting of a cytotoxic payload directly into PSMA-positive cancer cells while sparing PSMA-negative normal cells. Along with collaborators, they defined the MXXXL internalization motif on PSMA's intracellular domain. In 1998, both Bander’s and Heston’s teams showed that PSMA was expressed in the tumor neovasculature of multiple cancers but not normal vasculature. Both the Cornell and MSKCC groups later independently showed that the J591 mAb could be used clinically to target the blood supply of a similarly wide variety of solid tumors. Bander’s team humanized J591 for clinical trials. Using radiolabeled mAbs and PSMA-targeted PET imaging, they accurately identified cancer spread. Their work laid the foundation for the now standard PSMA PET scan. They were also first to use 177Lutetium intravenously in trials, validating PSMA as a therapeutic target. This laid the groundwork for the eventual 2022 approval of Lu177 vipivotide tetraxetan (Pluvicto®) for the treatment of prostate cancer.. His recent research continues targeting alpha particles like Actinium-225 (Ac225), which are significantly more potent than beta particles. Bander has also contributed to PSMA-targeted antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). His J591 mAb was adopted by Ambrx/Johnson & Johnson for clinical ADC development. As of 2024, over 750 PSMA-related trials are registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Before retiring from Weill Cornell in 2023, Bander founded two biotech companies:

Convergent Therapeutics, Inc. — developing CONV01-alpha (J591-Ac-225) XenImmune Therapeutics, Inc. — developing tumor antigen rejection strategies based on transplant immunology.

Research and publications Bander has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers and holds more than 130 U.S. and international patents in oncology research and drug development.

Honors and awards Ferdinand C. Valentine Fellowship, New York Academy of Medicine James Ewing Fellow’s Research Award, Society of Surgical Oncology Research awards from German and Japanese Urology Societies Prostate Cancer Foundation research awards Clark Cutler Medal for Surgical Innovation, Royal College of Surgeons (London) Chung Lee Lectureship, Northwestern Medicine (2024)

Professional affiliations Bander is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of:

American Urological Association Society of Urologic Oncology American Society of Clinical Oncology American Association for Cancer Research

Selected publications Motzer RJ, Bander NH, Nanus DM. (1996). Renal-cell carcinoma. N Engl J Med, 335(12): 865–875. Gnarra JR, Tory K, Weng Y, et al. (1994). Mutations of the VHL tumour suppressor gene in renal carcinoma. Nature Genetics, 7(1): 85–90. Hrkach J, Von Hoff D, Ali MM, et al. (2012). PSMA-targeted docetaxel nanoparticle. Sci Transl Med, 4(128): 128ra39. Chang SS, Reuter VE, Heston WDW, Bander NH, et al. (1999). Anti-PSMA antibodies confirm expression in neovasculature. Cancer Res, 59(13): 3192–3198. Sternberg CN, Yagoda A, Scher HI, et al. (1989). MVAC chemotherapy in urothelial carcinoma. Cancer, 64(12): 2448–2458. Liu H, Moy P, Kim S, et al. (1997). PSMA antibodies react with tumor vascular endothelium. Cancer Res, 57(17): 3629–3634. Bander NH, Milowsky MI, Nanus DM, et al. (2005). Phase I trial of 177Lu-J591. J Clin Oncol, 23(21): 4591–4601. Chakravarty D, Sboner A, Nair SS, et al. (2014). NEAT1 lncRNA in prostate cancer. Nat Commun, 5: 5383. McDevitt MR, Ma D, Lai LT, et al. (2001). Tumor therapy with atomic nanogenerators. Science, 294(5546): 1537–1540. Liu H, Rajasekaran AK, Moy P, et al. (1998). Internalization of PSMA. Cancer Res, 58(18): 4055–4060.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Neil H. Bander

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Neil H. Bander claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Neil H. Bander before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Neil H. Bander ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Neil H. Bander

In research: Neil H. Bander appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Neil H. Bander in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Neil H. Bander is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American medical researchers, American surgeons, American urologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Neil H. Bander outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Neil H. Bander in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Neil H. Bander means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Neil H. Bander out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Neil H. Bander in simple terms?

Neil H. Bander is an American surgeon-scientist with a clinical specialty in urological oncology and a research focus in tumor immunology.

Why does Neil H. Bander matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Neil H. Bander?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Neil H. Bander.