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Thursday, 16 June 2011

A highly respected academic in our School of Anatomy and Human Biology is not only leading the fight against cancer, he is also recruiting an army of some of India's top young students to join UWA medical researchers battling disease on several fronts.

One of Emeritus Professor Arun Dharmarajan's most recent ‘footsoldiers' is postdoctoral researcher Dr Eliza James. Dr James is working in three UWA laboratories to make a nanoparticle capable of encapsulating a new anti-tumour drug and to carry out in vitro studies once the site-specific therapy is delivered into cancer cells.

From Bharadhidasan University in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Dr James won a postdoctoral fellowship to undertake research at UWA with Professor Dharmarajan as well as Winthrop Professor Christobel Saunders in the School of Surgery and Winthrop Professor Colin Raston in the Centre for Strategic Nano-Fabrication.

Professor Saunders, co-author of Breast Cancer-The Facts, recently published by Oxford University Press, is a leading oncologist. Professor Raston, Director of the Centre for Strategic Nano- Fabrication, is an international expert in nanotechnology - or the creation of objects one billionth of a metre in size for use in health, renewable energy and the environment.

Professor Dharmarajan, known as ‘Dharma' around campus, said nanotechnology was being explored way of directly targeting cancer, making treatment more effective, reducing side-effects and decreasing the waste that accompanies the manufacture of drugs.

He found that a naturally occurring protein - secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (sFRP4) - inhibits tumours by blocking off the blood supply containing the oxygen and nutrients they need to thrive.

Dr James will explore encapsulating sFRP4 in a nanoparticle which can be directly delivered into cancer cells. She will also build on her PhD research, in which she discovered that a compound in the plant Costus speciosus (also known as crepe ginger) has anti-diabetic as well as anti-cancer qualities.

"I hope to encapsulate some of the compound in a nanoparticle and see if it can effectively treat cancer," she said.

With the anti-cancer treatment inside the nanoparticle, she will then attach a fluorescent molecule to the nanoparticle and inject it into cancer cells so she can observe what happens via a scanning electron microscope.

For 2010-2011, Professor Dharmarajan has recruited eight of India's most promising young bio-medical students to work with researchers such as Winthrop Professor Fiona Wood. For 2012, another group of high-achieving students from India's best institutions will arrive at UWA .

"Having Indian students at UWA establishes strong research links with Indian institutions which could have global benefits," he said.

Published in UWA News , 13 June 2011

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