Cancer research to address future challenges in early diagnosis and treatments

Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy recognized the pioneering research of Dr. Anil K. Suresh, Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, SRM University, AP by honoring him with the “Outstanding Researcher Gold Medal Award” on December 20th, 2019 at Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology & Research, Guntur. Dr. Anil’s revolutionary research encompasses nano-technology enabled smart nanobeads for cancer theranostic and clinical medicine. Through his research, he designs nanoparticles for timely diagnosis and targeted treatment of the otherwise terminal diseases to solve future challenges in biomedicine. The primary objective of one of his DBT funded research projects “Direct removal of multi-drug resistant cells out of blood” is aimed at cancer specific Ab-mediated direct removal of leukemia out of our blood using nanomagnets as an alternative to chemotherapy.

Mortality due to cancer has barely decreased in decades, despite an exponential increase in the development of efficient treatment processes. However, sub-groups of patients with a variety of tumor types including lung, bladder, and kidney have witnessed a dramatic curative success using immunotherapy. While such breakthroughs offer the hope of prolonged survival for some patients with advanced cancers, finding cancers at an early stage is a critical parameter that would substantially improve the chances of cure. The survival rates for patients with early diagnoses are five to ten times higher, accentuating the necessity of research targeting accurate diagnosis at an initial stage of cancer. Dr. Anil K Suresh along with his team researches to enable diagnosis and localized treatment of early stage invasive cancers (in some cases, pre-invasive states).

Dr. Anil recalls, “I was like any other researcher doing basic research on nanoscience and nanotechnology until I got an opportunity to work at Beckman Cancer Research Institute, where I often witnessed several cancer patients including young kids and women yelling in agony while undergoing chemo or radio therapy. Since then I became intensively stubborn, and am sincerely striving to the best of my abilities to diagnose and treat cancer, with an hope of giving cancer patients an human-friendly painless therapeutic option.
What inspires me the most is my fervor to eradicate suffering and my passion to cure! I personally believe that suffering in any form is painful, especially when a person is diseased with hard to cure life threatening diseases such as HIV, Diabetes, Cancer, etc. “

Faculty members of SRM AP-Dr. Venkata Nori and Dr. Jayaprakash Panchagnula (Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Dr. Anirban Ghosh (Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering) invited the celebrated researcher Dr. Sumon Sinha to visit our campus and conduct a three-day workshop on “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Design for Low Altitude Weather Data Acquisition”. Dr. Sinha did his B.Tech (Hons.) in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and his MS and Ph. D. from the University of Miami with specialization in Fluid Dynamics. After being associated as faculty in eminent institutes in the US including University of Mississippi, he delved into his business venture, Sinhatech in 2007 to provide innovative solutions to unresolved technical issues in Canada, USA, Japan, etc. Through his intuitive understanding of the subject, he developed and patented the Composite Flexible Surface Deturbulator to obtain higher controllability of drones in a high crosswind.

Dr. Sinha aims to offer solutions to certain fundamental problems in India through his expertise in aerodynamics. With his motivation to serve the country he has his roots attached to; he aims to build a team that would assist him to accomplish his dream project of using drones to gather weather reports on the sea surface at low altitude as well as general weather forecast data. “The sensors attached to the drone augmented with the deturbulator can gather critical data for accurate prediction of cyclones in the sea which the presently used Doppler Radar can only approximate”, says Dr. Sinha providing solutions to issues related to storm prediction. He further adds, “In India, weather stations use immensely expensive and non-reusable helium balloons embedded with sensors to capture data for general weather reports”. He intends to offer a cost-effective solution to these problems with reusable and less expensive drones.

On 3^rd January, our faculty shortlisted a team of 15 enthusiastic students who worked on this assignment alongside Dr. Sinha. When asked what intrigued them regarding the workshop, N. Venkata Kishore Kumar Reddy (2^nd year, ECE) says, “My father is in the Indian army which made me aspire to build a drone someday that can work as a spy for the army”.

The workshop began with a lecture by Dr. Sinha where the students got a glimpse of the engineering concepts behind building a drone which can go up to 120 feet to gather atmospheric data.

Later, he demonstrated the flight of the drone where the students got hands-on experience in controlling the device.

“I learned a lot about UAV from Dr. Sumon Sinha who is excellent in explaining the concept, he is also brilliant in flying RC objects. This knowledge will help us identify the various applications of the fixed wing plane-UAV in the future”, expresses M Raviteja (2^nd year, ME).

The students were then divided into three groups and were assigned the task of building a drone each.

“The interactive sessions improved my knowledge on drones, air vehicles, and the basic aerodynamic science that works behind the flying objects” speaks Krishna Teja Vinnakota (1^st year-CSE).  On the last day of the workshop, the teams managed to develop three drones, one of which was embedded with the sensors that accurately captured data on temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, altitude, latitude, longitude, and dynamic pressure. “After having experience with the basic technicalities of building the drones, it is on us to improve its functionality and make it more usable” conforms Kishore who has already made an Agri Drone which can throw seeds coated with fertilizers in farming lands from a height of 4.5 meters above the ground. Inspired and educated from the workshop, our students plan to build a quadcopter in their next venture.

Bennet Benny has been honoured with the opportunity to attend an internship under the supervision of Prof. Ryo Maezono at JAIST, Japan. Established in 1990, JAIST is one of the research-intensive institutes for post-graduate studies located in the centre of Ishikawa Science Park (ISP). The internship is funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), a government funding agency.

Under the guidance of Prof. Ranjit Thapa, Bennet had applied for the internship in March. This internship begins on 16th December and will continue till 24th December,2019. Bennet will be given hands-on tutorial on electronic structure calculations using DFT and QMC computational methods on one of the supercomputers located at JAIST. He will be joined by five other students from Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia.

“I am very excited to be given this opportunity as it will provide me with excellent practical experience and ample exposure that will be helpful to build my career.”, says Bennet and further expresses his gratitude towards Prof. D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, SRM University AP, and Dr. Sabyasachi Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics for their immense encouragement and guidance.

Prof. D. Narayana Rao receives honoured for his outstanding contributions to Physical Sciences

Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Pro Vice Chancellor, SRM University-AP, Amaravati has been conferred with the Fellowship of the Indian Science Congress (FISC) for his outstanding contributions to Physical Sciences.

The Fellowship has been awarded to Prof. Rao by the Indian Science Congress Association at their Council Meeting held in Bangalore on 16th October 2019.  The main objective of ISCA is to advance and promote the cause of Science in India, recognize and support excellence in scientific research, technologies and innovations. Prof. Rao’s outstanding achievements and sustainable significant contributions to sciences were recognised and honoured.

SRM University AP organized a felicitation ceremony for Prof. Rao on this occasion where he encouraged the professors to pursue research by stating its significance. The ceremony was chaired by Dr. D Gunasekaran (Registrar), Dr. B Sivakumar (Deputy Registrar), and Dr. Anil K Suresh (Associate Professor,  Biotechnology) who congratulated Prof. Rao on his achievements along with the faculty and staff members of the university.