New Delhi, February 12 – Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed and patented a new drug delivery system aimed at improving breast cancer treatment. This innovation leverages nanomaterials to precisely deliver anti-cancer drugs to affected cells, offering a safer and more effective alternative to conventional treatments.

According to Professor Swati Sudhakar from the Department of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, the nanocarriers used in this system are biocompatible and non-toxic to healthy cells. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation therapy, which attack both cancerous and healthy cells, leading to severe side effects like hair loss, nausea, and fatigue, this targeted approach minimizes damage to healthy tissue.

Sudhakar further explained that frequent doses of chemotherapy drugs can lead to cancer cells developing resistance over time, reducing treatment effectiveness. In laboratory tests conducted on breast cancer cells, researchers found that nano-archaeosomes filled with anti-cancer drugs effectively inhibited tumor growth, even at low drug doses.

The study, funded by IIT Madras and the Ministry of Education, has been published in renowned journals like Materials Advances and Nanoscale Advances under the Royal Society of Chemistry.

A patent for this breakthrough was granted last month, marking a significant step toward transforming cancer therapy. The next phase of research involves testing the system on animal models to further evaluate its efficacy and safety.

By delivering controlled drug doses directly to tumor sites, this new system ensures longer drug availability, reducing the need for frequent doses and improving the overall effectiveness of breast cancer treatment.

Mumbai, Jan 4 (IANS) At least 85 students of Indian Institute of Bombay (IIT-B) reaped a rich harvest of job offers with more than Rs 1 crore per annum CTC, an official said here on Thursday.

As many as 388 Indian and international companies and organisations from around the world made the offers in various sectors for the placement season 2023-2024 in the Phase 1.

Among them were companies making pre-placement offers (PPOs) as well as PSUs, and firms interacted with the students in person or through virtual meeting platforms with all the students appearing for interviews from the venue.

Till December 20, 2023, around 1,340 offers were with 1,188 students getting placed including 7 in PSUs and 297 PPOs via internships of which 258 were accepted.

The IIT-B slotted companies in a way to ensure that firms are maximally spread out to reduce stress on students and also minimise cross offers, said the official spokesperson. The sectors with highest number of offers were engineering and technology (average salaries Rs 21.88 lakh/per annum), information technology/software (Rs 26.35 lakh/per annum), finance/banking/fintech (Rs 32.38 lakh/per annum), management consulting (Rs 18.68 lakh

/per annum), data science and analytics, research and development (Rs 36.94 lakh/per annum), and design; with the overall average salaries pegged at Rs 24.02 lakh/per annum.

Among the placements were 63 students who received international offers with locations in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The top recruiters who visited the campus this season included: Accenture, Airbus, Air India, Apple, Arthur D. Little, Bajaj, Barclays, Cohesity, Da Vinci, DHL, Fullerton, Future First, GE-ITC, Global Energy and Environ, Google, Honda R&D, ICICI-Lombard, ideaForge, IMC Trading, Intel, Jaguar Land Rover, JP Morgan Chase, JSW, Kotak Securities, Marsh McLennan, Mahindra Group, Micron, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Mercedes-Benz, L&T, NK Securities, OLA, P&G, Qualcomm, Reliance group, Samsung, Schlumberger, Strand Life Sciences, Tata group, Texas Instruments, TSMC, TVS Group and Wells Fargo among many more, according to IIT-B.

Chennai, July 25 (IANS) Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed a computational approach to understand the interactions between genes that are responsible for inter-organ communication within the body.

Communication among cells in different tissues and organs is pivotal to multi-cellular life.

Molecular basis of such communication has long been studied, but genome-wide screens for genes and other biomolecules mediating tissue-tissue signalling are lacking.

To systematically identify inter-tissue mediators, the team developed MultiCens or Multilayer/Multi-tissue network Centrality measures, which enables the exchange of information between organs and tissues of the body, and is critical for the proper functioning and survival of all living organisms.

This inter-organ communication network (ICN), described in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Computational Biology, also allows organisms to adapt to changes in their environment, assess their energy reserves, and maintain overall well-being.

“Much of the research on the ICN has primarily involved experiments on model organisms like the fruit fly, which may not directly apply to humans and other non-model organisms,” said Prof. B. Ravindran, a faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras.

"Moreover, the experimental techniques used can be time-consuming due to the numerous interactions between biomolecules in different tissues. As a result, our knowledge of the ICN is currently incomplete," he added.

In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of ICNs role in maintaining good health and addressing diseases, the team created MultiCens, an innovative computational method, by utilising the genomic information available for various tissues.

“The importance of our MultiCens method lies in its ability to identify the key genes in the ICN in various healthy or disease conditions. At the heart of MultiCens are network science algorithms that quantify the importance of genes within a tissue as well as across multiple tissues in a hierarchical fashion,” said Prof. Manikandan Narayanan, faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Madras.

The researchers used MultiCens to predict genes closely associated with hormones, which are essential for numerous bodily functions, and also unveiled changes in gene interactions within and across different brain regions affected by Alzheimer's Disease.

In addition, it can also be expanded to understanding cancer metastasis, as cancer originates in a single organ and in due course of time spreads to others.

MultiCens can be applied to other healthy and disease genomic settings as well. MultiCens source code is openly available, and ongoing work on web interface to the method and experimental validation of its predictions can further enable a comprehensive understanding of the ICN and its role in overall health and well-being, the researchers said.