Visakhapatnam: Cancer care poses a significant economic burden on countries and there is an urgent need to study the impactful cancer treatment methods, observed Oregon Health and Science University (USA) researcher Prof Sanjay Malhotra here on Monday. He participated in ‘international SPARC cancer research conclave’ jointly organised by GITAM School of Science and Oregon Health and Science University. Addressing the gathering, Prof Malhotra said that the global incidence of breast cancer has been rising with an annual increase of 3.1 per cent. He recollected that in the year 2020 itself around 6.8 lakh women died due to breast cancer at global level. He briefed that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly heterogeneous disease with distinct features at the pathological, molecular and clinical levels that are associated with lower survival rates than other subtypes of breast cancer (BC) particularly TNBC is a highly aggressive subtype of breast cancer and represents for 15-20 percent of all breast cancer cases.

Dysregulation of protein translation is a frequent feature of cancer, he added. He revealed that his research team at Oregon Health and Science University identified a combination of treatments that show promise in slowing the progression of cancer and reducing tumor growth.

School of Science Dean S. Anantha Rama Krishna said that the SPARC project, officially known as the scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration, is an initiative by the Ministry of Education in India to enhance the research ecosystem in Indian higher education institutions by fostering collaborations between Indian institutions and top-ranked international institutions.

Principal K Vedavathi, Life Sciences Department head N Srinivas, Cancer Biology Laboratory Malla Rama Rao, P Vasudevaraju and others participated in the programme.

IISc Bengaluru Paturu Kondaiah, IIT-Madras Suresh Kumar Rayala, IISER Tirupati Researcher V Sivakumar, Alabama University (USA) PG Nagaraju, Bioinformatics Laboratory researchers A Krishna Chaitanya, N Nageswara Rao Reddy, Oregon Health and Science University (USA) researcher Shivani Kumar delivered talks on various cancer research outcomes.