Archives for 2018

The US National Cancer Institute has give the “Outstanding Investigator Award” to Professor Arul Chinnaiyan, from the University of Michigan, and $6.5 million in funding over seven years, to identify cancer biomarkers to improve diagnosis and develop new targeted therapies.

“The field of precision oncology continues to evolve with the overarching goal of providing cancer patients with enhanced diagnostic and prognostic capabilities and better treatments,” Chinnaiyan, said in a statement, late on Monday.

“This grant will help us identify new biomarkers and understand their biological roles in cancer progression,” he added.

A pioneer in precision oncology, Chinnaiyan in 2010, launched the Michigan Oncology Sequencing (Mi-ONCOSEQ) programme.

Mi-ONCOSEQ is a research protocol for sequencing the DNA and RNA of metastatic cancers and normal tissue to identify alterations that could help drive treatment.

The programme includes a precision medicine tumour board in which experts discuss each case.

Chinnaiyan’s lab has also analysed the global landscape of a portion of the genome that has not been previously well-explored — long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs).

Earlier, considered as the dark matter, new evidence suggests that lncRNAs may play a role in cancer and that understanding them better could lead to new potential targets for improving cancer diagnosis, prognosis or treatment.

Chinnaiyan’s lab has also identified and explored several lncRNAs that could be promising targets for future therapy.

“We want to further characterise the dark matter of the genome. Some of these lncRNAs will certainly be very useful as cancer biomarkers and we think a subset are important in biological processes,” Chinnaiyan noted.

“We hope to make it commonplace for patients to have a molecular blueprint of their tumour to guide treatment choices.”

With his first three-year term as a Member of Parliament in New Zealand behind him, Mumbai-born Mahesh Bindra is biding his time for the next phase of his engagement in his adopted country’s public life.

“With some luck I might get a second term, but irrespective of that I enjoy being part of politics in a democratically vibrant country,” Bindra told IANS on the sidelines of the recently-concluded World Hindu Congress in Lombard near here where he was a special invitee.

Travelling to New Zealand with his wife and three children in 2002, Bindra has attained a position of political prominence after becoming an MP in 2014. From being a principal correctional officer at the Mount Eden prison, which then had 400 inmates, Bindra’s career took a political turn when he asked a tough question of Winston Peters, leader of the controversial New Zealand First party who is also the country’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, at a public gathering.

Peters and his party had the reputation for race-baiting and Bindra being an outspoken man wanted to find out the truth for himself. A candid exchange with Peters prompted the latter to invite Bindra to join the party and consider politics. “I come from a political family. My father was an active member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. When Peters asked me to consider a political career it seemed like a natural progression,” he said.

He became a member of NZ First in 2006 over cautions of fellow Indian immigrants, many of whom thought Peters and his party were racist. “I studied the party’s policies closely. In fact, Peters even asked me to make policy suggestions over immigration. My many interactions told me that the perceptions of NZ First being racist were unfounded and in fact Peters and others were open to suggestion,” he said.

When he first contested for parliament from the Mount Roskill constituency in the city of Auckland in 2011, he got 419 votes and was placed 21st on the party list. It was only after he began rising steadily that in 2014 he was elected to parliament under New Zealand’s rather complex electoral system. Although his first term ended last year, there are strong expectations that he will return in 2020.

During his term as MP, Bindra was appointed spokesman for Corrections, Customs, Ethnic Affairs and Land Information New Zealand.

In a country where the aboriginal Maori population constitutes about 15 percent of the total of 4.74 million people, Bindra won their hearts when he took his oath in the Maori language apart from English. He said the Maori members were “overcome” by his gesture. “I told them it was my way of respecting and acknowledging the original inhabitants of New Zealand,” he said.

Bindra said he is conscious of the fact that the Maori make up more than 50 per cent of the prison population and wants to continue his engagement to address the often unjust legal system. “Race relations in New Zealand are, by and large, healthy, but we have our own challenges. As an immigrant, I feel it is my duty to play my part in improving them, especially for the Maori people,” he said.

Bindra sees himself as a long-term politician dedicated to represent New Zealand in “the best possible way I can”. He believes that Indians in their adopted countries around the world must get involved in politics at all levels “because that is the best way to assimilate and get heard”.

(IANS)

Americans are recognizing that they don’t trust the US President who has maintained that he knew nothing about what was went on in his campaign, Indian-American Congressman Pramila Jayapal has said.

Her comments came after Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges last week.

He also agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigations about the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“You see people recognizing they don’t trust the President. They believe that Bob Mueller is doing a good job and that the investigation should continue. People are saying, look, this is outrageous,” the first Indian-American woman elected to the US House of Representatives told CNN on Sunday.

“This level of corruption, greed, some of the individual charges that are outlined in the Manafort, charging document really show that this guy (Manafort)… is in jail because of jury tampering.

“When you think about this, it isn’t just the individual pieces that we’re seeing, but what we’re seeing is top advisers, people who ran the campaign, the campaign manager, the deputy campaign manager, the President’s personal lawyer who have all pleaded guilty.

“… And you have to begin to wonder how it could possibly be the case that the President knew nothing about what was going on,” asked Jayapal.

She praised Muller for doing a “great investigation”.

“I think Bob Muller has been doing a great investigation. I think he was just handed the keys to the castle, not just with Manafort but also with Michael Cohen.”

In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating election laws and said he had been directed to do so by the President. He had also admitted paying hush money to two women to keep them from talking about their affairs with Trump during the presidential campaign.

“They (people) see the chaos of the last 18 months. They don’t want it. They don’t like shattering of norms. What does a person who has the biggest bully pulpit of the White House do? They don’t like the tweets that come from the President, contesting what happened in (Hurricane) Maria,” Jayapal said.

She said that people want Trump to be focussed and to be presidential, but “he is none of those things”.

“In addition to that, people are not seeing their own lives changing. Healthcare is the number one issue on the table.

“When you look at what Republicans have done to undermine healthcare costs, to drive premiums up, to strip pre-existing, the ability to qualify for healthcare with pre-existing conditions, these are things that Americans care about. They do not see healthcare getting better,” she said.

(IANS)