Abid Brings Hematology Expertise to TTUHSC Oncology Team

• By Mark Hendricks
• November 24, 2025
• Research

Muhammad Bilal Abid, M.D., a malignant hematologist and a transplant and cellular therapy expert with basic science, translational and clinical expertise in engineered T-cell therapies, has joined the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine oncology team as an associate professor of internal medicine and medical director of TTUHSC’s Blood and Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Program.

Abid said his role is to build a program that will serve the local patient population in West Texas with stem cell transplant, cellular therapy, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and bispecific antibodies (proteins designed to bind simultaneously to two different antigens) for the years to come.

“Our job is to keep patients from having to leave their homes and travel hundreds of miles to Dallas, Houston and other places to receive these cutting-edge scientific advancements, which have proven to be life-prolonging and have substantially improved survival of patients across disease types,” Abid said.

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma account for more than 90% of all blood cancers, both nationally and globally. The percentage of patients affected by blood cancers is thought to be higher in West Texas than the rest of the country. He attributes that to genetics and to environmental and occupation-related factors in this part of Texas.

“It is ironic that while people here serve the rest of the country in providing them with the basic necessities, yet when people in West Texas suffer from deadly cancers, they have to travel a long distance and stay away from family and loved ones,” Abid said. “That results in time toxicity, financial distress and caregiver problems. If I develop a lymphoma and have to travel a long distance, another caregiver, a family member of mine, will have to take off from work, school or college. This is a toll on the entire family when we have to travel far and wide to seek treatment.”

In the lab, Abid’s research focuses on blood cancers, specifically a treatment type called CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T-cell therapy in which a single cell — a T-cell harvested from a patient — is harvested, engineered and taken to the lab where it is engineered to express a protein that binds to another protein, uniquely and exclusively expressed on a cancer cell.

“That allows a patient's T-cells to distinctively target a tumor cell and leave normal cells alone,” Abid explained. “This is a very precise way of targeting cancer cells. This leads to direct cell death — very rapid, instant and self-perpetuating cell death — and it spares our normal cells. So the goal is to achieve effective cancer control, prolong survival, but not at the expense of our quality of life.”

Abid, who came to TTUHSC from the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston, was recently recognized for his work when the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) awarded him its 2025 Young Investigator Award for promoting quality research in the field of hematologic oncology. He also was conferred the honor of Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 2025 in London, United Kingdom, for excellence in patient care, clinical research and mentorship. 

Abid was named a 2025 Texas Top Doctor for clinical excellence in cancer research by Texas Top Docs, a health care resource that reviews and rates Texas doctors and dentists based on merit.

In addition, the Abid lab’s recent publication/statement for the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, an international professional association for health care professionals specializing in blood and marrow transplantation and cellular therapies, paved the way for regulatory policy-making for CAR-T cell therapy. To end the year, Abid will serve as an invited speaker at the 67th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, held Dec. 6-9 in Orlando, Florida. 

Abid enjoys time away from the laboratory and clinic with his wife, who is a dentist, and their two children.