Srinagar: Strife
torn Kashmir has earned a rare honour after a 38-year-old scientist, along with
13 other internationally reputed researchers, identified a new gene ‘DHX15’
that has a role in prostate cancer progression. Dr Khalid Zaffar Masoodi,
assistant professor and team leader at the Transcriptomics Laboratory, Division
of Plant Biotechnology in Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and
Technology (SKUAST), Kashmir, was a part of the study carried out in
collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh, USA. The study has been
published in February 2018 issue of Nature Oncogene, a top rated Journal from
Nature publishing group. The study is the first to reveal how DHX15
over-expression is associated with prostate cancer recurrence. “We were astonished
to find that DHX15 had a role in cancer’s spread round the body. But to
discover how it also appears to drive the growth of prostate cancer cells is a
real game changer,” said Dr. Masoodi. A native of Srinagar, Dr Masoodi
completed Ph.D in Biotechnology from University of Jammu before moving to
University of Pittsburg for post doctorate for four years. After return, he
joined SKUAST in 2014 and since then has been working as Assistant Professor
and Team Leader at the Transcriptomics Laboratory, Division of Plant
Biotechnology. “We screened two lakh molecules for discovery of new drugs
against prostate cancer. We found three good drugs which are better than FDI
approved drug in the market. Since we are in the agriculture university and
farmer is our mandate and we have found lately that there is increase of breast
cancer, ovarian cancer or prostate cancer. It is because of overuse of
pesticides and fungicides because they act on the receptors”, said Dr Masoodi.
The clinical trials of the drug are yet to take off but the results in the
mouses have shown remarkable results. “It has been tested in mouse model and
clinical trials will take time. It has succeed in the mouse model and it is
better than the FDI approved drug”, he said.
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