Breast cancer breakthrough

Dr M.K. Arunasree of the University of Hyderabad, was recently awarded the prestigious International American Cancer Society Beginning Investigator’s Award, sponsored by Union for International Cancer Control.

Every year the award is given to three or four researchers and this year it’s aiding Dr Arunasree to carry out research in collaboration with Dr Zhibin Wang at the famous Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore in the US, for a year.

Dr Anurasree, who did her Masters in Molecular and Human Genetics from Banaras Hindu University, says that through her PhD research in UOH, she was able to show that a painkiller named celecoxib in combination with anticancer drugs can overcome multidrug resistance in cancer.

She adds, “Cancer treatment with a chemotherapeutic drug is always followed by development of resistance to the drug. In such a scenario the dosage of drugs is increased which results in very adverse side effects like nausea, vomiting, hair and weight loss and anemia. In my research, I demonstrated that a low combination dose of the anticancer drug and celecoxib, a drug approved for arthritis treatment, helps in overcoming drug resistance without increasing the dosage of the chemotherapeutic drug.”

She informs that as a student of genetics she was also interested in understanding the genetics behind breast cancer metastasis and this led to her collaboration with Dr Zhibin Wang.

“Breast cancer is one of the major cause of deaths in India. Breast cancer cells also undergo further changes in their genetic makeup and cause secondary cancers in brain, lungs and bones. Early detection of cancer is a major issue in the treatment of breast cancer. Although mammograms are available in various diagnostic labs, the lack of awareness and the cost involved has not been able to improve the diagnosis,” she says.