Harvard and Oxford Scientists Interact with LPU Students

The School of Biotechnology & Biosciences of Lovely Professional University conducted interactive sessions on “Recent Trends in Genomics & Personalized Medicine” for LPU students and faculty-members. Renowned bio-informatician Dr. Manoj K Bhasin and Dr. GPS Raghava, post- doctoral fellow at Oxford & Cambridge universities, came to LPU to lead the sessions. Their interactions with LPU scientists were centered around research in the area of treatments through personalized medicines, and big genomic data transfer for exact analysis. This is a approach wherein treatments are tailored as per the unique characteristics of each patient, particularly in the cases of fatal considered diseases like cancer. It is being understood the world over that personalized medicine provides better treatments and fewer side effects, in comparison to traditional common treatment through radiotherapy & chemotherapy.

Dr. Manoj K Bhasin is a Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is also a senior investigator for Mind Body Medicine in Boston. Dr. Bhasin has a strong track record in computational vaccine design, functional genomics, proteomics and systems biology with numerous scientific publications, multiple patents and copyrighted software. An IIT Scientist, Dr. GPS Raghava has wide research experience at prestigious universities of the UK, USA and South Korea including Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Dr. Raghav shares, “Human ‘Genes’ are responsible for different special characterizations and are found in the DNA of both plants and human beings. A researcher should have a strong will-power to probe, learn and analyze along these lines. Now a days, the success of drugs can be tested through computers ratinstead of animal trials. Through computer aided vaccine developments, identification of drug targets, personalized drugs can be made even against deadly diseases like Ebola, Zika virus, HIV or any other disease, as per case to case or individually. Earlier it was a challenge to prepare a drug for HIV as its virus mutates very fast, but after years of research we are now hopeful of making successful drugs for HIV treatment.”

Discussing case studies, Dr Manoj Bhasin informed students, “In a pancreatic type of cancer no medicine, no drugs and no specific treatment has been identified. The life of such a patient can be extended at the most up to 5 years, by using drugs, if the cancer is diagnosed during the first stage. For using personalized medicine, tests need to be performed to identify what the requirements of the body of a particular patient are. So, personalized medicines are as per the ‘Gene’ of the patient, and these differ from person to person. In fact, now, doctors decide how to control cancer by researching in depth about the specific molecular and genetic makeup of their individual patient’s tumor instead of locating where in the body the cancer started.”