Manoj Godara, Chandigarh, October 15: An International Symposium on Cancer Research and Translational Initiatives cum workshop on flowcytometry started at Panjab University coinciding with the day when Panjab University held its first ever syndicate in 1882. This event, in a way is a dedication to the visionary syndics who laid the strong foundations to envision a University with excellence.
This three days event taking place at Panjab University has been planned under the futurist directions of Prof. R.C. Sobti, Vice-Chancellor Panjab University. Inaugurating the event, Prof N. K. Ganguly, Advisor Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, New Delhi highlighted the importance of cancer research especially in the Indian scenario. He stressed upon the early detection of the most prevalent forms of cancers of head and neck, cervical and breast cancer. According to him the need of the hour is to devise better diagnostic methods that can reach all parts of the country.
Dr. Ganguly emphasised that concerted interdisciplinary objectives should be made to face the challenges of alarmingly uprising cancer cases. He suggested that we must endeavour to set up state-of-the-art facilities with cutting edge technology like flowcytometry to be used in the field of cancer biology. Dr Ganguly complemented the organisers for bringing this type of event at Panjab University, where the students and researchers can be trained by the experts from USA in the flowcytometry technique.
Professor Awtar Krishan from Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida, who is also the foreign advisor for this event, talked about the technology and the applications of flow cytometry. Dr Krishan shared how this event at Panjab University was initiated, benefitting the scientific fraternity.
Dr William Telford from Centre for Cancer Research at the National Cancer institute at NIH briefed about the cutting innovative technologies involved in the advancement of instrumentation of flow cytometry in terms of cutting down the cost and reducing the space covered to appeal majority of the researchers.
Dr Rajinder Koul from University of Washington, Seattle presented his talk on the manifestations of the genome defining epigenomic landscape and their critical role in human health and disease.
Dr L. Scott Cram from Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of Arizona described the role of flow cytogenetics (chromosome analysis and sorting) for clinical and research applications. Another approach was discussed by Dr. Jagat Kanwar from Deakin University, Melbourne who employed nanomedicine and target drug delivery in cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Dr Radhika Srinivas from PGIMER discussed the role of telomerase and its potential as a target for early diagnosis of cancer and cancer management. The first day, session was concluded by Dr. Vivekanand Jha from Deptt. of Nephrology, PGIMER emphasizing the importance of an important phenomenon in tissue healing i.e. angiogenesis and its role in controlling metastatic tumors.
The Friday session began with the presentation by Dr Kusum Joshi from PGIMER reinforcing the role of angiogenesis in breast cancer. It was followed by scientific deliberation by Dr Vidudala Prasad from Indo-American Cancer Institute and Research Center, Hyderabad highlighting the association of a functional polymorphism in 12-lipoxygenase with breast cancer. Innovative questions from students regarding his talk were awarded by Dr. Prasad. Representing one of the upcoming fields in cancer stem cell biology, Dr. Sharmila Bapat from NCCS, Pune elegantly discussed the underlying role of cancer stem cells and tumor progression. Final session included presentations from distinguised scietists in the field of cancer research including Dr Sunil Arora, PGIMER and Prof S.K.Sanyal, Dr Jagdeep Kaur, Dr Neena Capalash, Dr Indupal Kaur from Panjab University.
About 120 students from Chandigarh, Himachal pardesh, Punjab, Haryana, New Delhi Participated in the event. The students thoroughly enjoyed the sessions as the delegats interacted personally in different groups. The delegates specifically from USA were so impressed to interact with the students to encourage the students different events like poster presentations and innovative ideas were held on two days. Professor Awtar Krishan gave awards to the winners. The workshop on Flow cytometry will be conducted on October 16, 2010 at the department of immunopathology, PGIMER, Chandigarh.