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Emerging Technologies - Session 3
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Megha Anilkumar Nair
2:14
Good afternoon and welcome to the third session of the colloquium: ‘Science, Technology, Policy and Society’. We have Dr T Rajkumar, Professor and Head of the Department of Molecular Oncology at Cancer Institute (WAI), Chennai and Nandan Sudarsanam, Department of Management Studies, Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI. This session will be moderated by Dr Jai Asundi, Executive Director at Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP).
2:16
Dr. Jai Asundi introduces Dr T Rajkumar, Professor and Head of the Department of Molecular Oncology at Cancer Institute (WAI), Chennai.
2:18
Prof. T Rajkumar starts with a brief mention of immunology. Immunology is the system which is necessary to ward off infections in human beings.
2:20
Citing the Covid-19 pandemic, he refers to the lack of immunity as the reason why we had a large number of people contracting the virus.
2:22
Prof. Rajkumar draws on innate immunity and its cellular elements that act as a protective agent in a newborn baby. The second component, he says, is adaptive immunity. The concept of adaptive immunity was utilized in producing vaccines to fight the Covid pandemic.
2:24
He goes on to touch upon effector cells and how the immune cell recognizes an infection in a cell.
2:28
Prof. Rajkumar talks of Thomas Burnet, mentioning his hypothesis being that the T-Cells can be a policing force in our body.
2:30
He draws upon the structure of a tumor cell to explain the concept of tumor growth and immunity suppression.
2:32
After a brief description of immunology, he moves on to talk about immunotherapy.
"Monochronal antibodies are called as immunal checkpoints," says Prof. Rajkumar.
2:33
"Monochronal antibodies are called as immunal checkpoints," says Prof. Rajkumar.
2:34
"Monoclonal antibodies have two arms," says Dr. Rajkumar, as he explains its structure and touches upon the high cost of producing it.
2:37
Prof. Rajkumar mentions about autoimmune diseases and how they occur when the immune system cannot distinguish between the natural cells of our body and foreign cells.
2:38
He adds, "Immune checkpoint inhibitors are the biggest invention of the past decade."
2:39
2:40
Further, Dr. Rajkumar talks about the issues with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The first, he says, is the cost.
2:41
"In America the cost can come to around 75 lakhs," he says.
2:42
Some other reasons also include neurotoxicity and side effects like Cytokine release syndrome.
2:45
Next, Prof. Rajkumar throws light on CAR T-Cell therapy and explains how its structural composition as a artificially generated T-cell would acurately target Cancer. He goes on to cite the different types of cancer that would be cured using this method.
2:47
Prof. also mentions the exhorbitant cost of production of this drug to combat cancer.
2:49
Moving on to biotechnology, he talks about how it is transforming agriculture and medicine. "It is a major field of improvement across the board, not merely restricted to humans," says Prof. Rajkumar.
2:51
In response to a question from the audience, Dr. Rajkumar draws on the extent of infected Covid patients and said, "Most of the patients were elderly, with a weak immune system."
2:52
Prof. Rajkumar goes on to explain how despite high mortality numbers in India, it does not still measure up to the figures coming in from the west.
2:53
"One of the long term problems that we are now seeing is the long term implications of Covid," he says.
2:55
Dr. T Rajkumar explaines how cancer vaccines were used to produce Covid vaccines but injecting dead strains of the vaccine into the human bloodstream.
Do you think Cart T-Cell Therapy is an effective way to combat cancer?
Yes (80% | 4 votes)
 
No (0% | 0 votes)
 
Maybe (20% | 1 vote)
 
Total Votes: 5
2:57
Dr. Rajkumar: Each tumor behaves differently. Breast cancer is not one entity. There are numerous subtypes and the treatment for different subtypes is different.
2:59
Precision medicine as a customized method of treating cancer is seen as an innovation, according to him.
3:02
In response to a question on public investment and drug research, T Rajkumar cites the example of Cipla and establishes that sustained funding is important in drug production.
3:04
Talking about preventing cancer, Prof. Rakumar  says, "Close to 55 percent to 60 percent of the cancers are preventable."
3:05
"Cancer per se is preventable." He thinks a heathy diet is the principle to evade cancer.
3:07
Answering a query on the best time and methods to detect breast cancer, Dr. Rajkumar suggests the best time to be around the age of 25.
3:10
He draws upon the increasing number of breast cancer cases in the country and cites a healthy lifestyle as being the best remedy to evade cancer.
3:12
What drives the Covid virus? Why did it spread as fast as it did? Prof. Rajkumar says, "It is evolutionary. RNA virus mutation is manifold of the DNA virus"
3:13
Dr. T Rajkumar ends his talk with a mention of virus mutation and resistence developed as a result of this mutation.
3:15
Next, Dr. Jai Asundi calls upon Nandan Sudarsanam, Department of Management Studies, Robert Bosch Centre to take the session 3 of the Science colloquium forward.
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