The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Varsity, Cancer Institute to initiate joint research

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 25, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Varsity, Cancer Institute to initiate joint research

Staff Reporter

Collaboration will be in education and research "A landmark project that came through in record time"

CHENNAI : The University of Madras and Cancer Institute on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for initiating collaborative programmes.

S.P. Thyagarajan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, said medical nanotechnology offered great scope. One of the areas of research in the Madras University was biosensors and biochips, he said.

In the last two and a half years, the university had signed MoUs with 34 foreign universities in 16 countries. He said students should fully harness the academic platform that was being provided through such collaborative work.

He also called upon the Cancer Institute to come up with more academic collaboration project proposals at the national level. Cancer Institute Chairperson V. Shanta said that it was a landmark project that came through in record time, thanks to the efforts of the Vice-Chancellor.

T. Rajkumar, Scientific Director of the Cancer Institute, said that the collaboration would be both in the field of education and research.

A self-financing three-year course will be offered in molecular medicine from the academic year 2006-07. The course would aim at both the medicine group (including veterinary and dental sciences) and the non-clinical life science group. The programme will be conducted at the Cancer Institute and the Dr. ALM Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Taramani.

Students undergoing the courses would have the option of getting into hospital services or research and industry or other academic institutions. The Institute also planned to initiate research collaboration between the different departments of the University. To begin with, it would be in the area of bio-informatics and novel drug development. Continuing Medical Education programmes would be organised jointly for training for academic and research personnel. Development of a database on basic, clinical, epidemiological and applied medical research, was also part of the programme, Dr. Rajkumar said.

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