IBAB hosts 'Women in Systems Oncology' symposium with leading experts and innovations

Bengaluru: The Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) organised a two day symposium titled ‘Women in Systems Oncology’ in coordination with the Param Hansa Centre for computational oncology at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. More than 100 delegates including students from IITs, IISc, IISERs and other engineering colleges, cancer researchers, industry professionals and clinicians across the country participated in the meeting. The meeting was addressed by a star line-up of speakers from academia and industry and had a panel discussion including expert clinicians from top hospitals around.

Participating in the symposium, Dr Geetha Manjunath, Founder, CEO and CTO of Niramai Analytix touched upon the need for developing tools for cancer screening that aids early-stage diagnosis to prevent progression of cancer especially in a country like India where extensive screening programmes do not exist.

She added that the recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS) of India reports that breast, oral cavity, and cervix-uteri cancers are the most prevalent cancers in India contributing to more than four lakh cases per year in the country. This is also because of the very small percentages (
The symposium elaborately discussed the need for discussing cancer screening programmes, insights from longitudinal studies on breast cancer, epigenetic correlates of cancer progression and the need to leverage Real-World Data and AI to revolutionize clinical research and to move from bench to bed. The symposium underlined the need for a strong interdisciplinary team science approach to accelerate innovations in diagnosis and therapy. Also urged for the formation of a consortium of cancer researchers, oncologists and imaging experts, technologists and computational biologists who would present an integrated solution to cancer diagnosis and therapy.