IAEA recognises Tata Memorial Centre as 'Anchor Centre' for 'Rays of Hope' initiative

Mumbai: The Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday inked an agreement recognising TMC as an 'Anchor Centre' for the IAEA's 'Rays of Hope' initiative.

As an Anchor Centre, TMC will train fellows, organise training courses for healthcare providers, participate in IAEA coordinated research projects, promote networking, and provide experts and mentorship to other radiotherapy and medical imaging centres in the neighbouring Low and Middle Income countries (LMIC).

Cancer prevalence in India and in the world is not particularly good as the numbers are growing, and the ratio of mortality is not going down the way that it should, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said at the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing function.

"We decided to try to tackle this issue through the 'Rays of Hope' initiative, which is an approach aimed at bringing radiotherapy to all corners of the world, and to do it in the most practical, economical and most scientifically sound way possible... This partnership, in a way, can help us bring these solutions to other places where this is badly needed," Grossi said.

Through the RoH initiative, IAEA intends to support equipment, training, research and innovation, and activities through the Regional Anchor Centres to maximize the delivery of high impact interventions to cancer patients in LMICs, he added.

Launched in 2022, RoH is aimed at assisting LMICs with their urgent needs to introduce and improve radiation medicine capacities and to build the cancer care workforce. Basically, this agreement is to make nuclear medicine related applications more available to people, especially in the developing world, said Shambu S Kumaran, Ambassador of India to Republic of Austria, Montenegro, Holy See and Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna.

"This agreement designating TMC as an anchor centre will allow it in a structured way to engage with the 'Rays of Hope' initiative and to address all the objectives," he added.