Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Cancer Warriors & Radiobiophotonics - Dr. Rao Papineni

Cancer Warriors and Radiobiophotonics at Cancun RRS 2017


Initiating this blog on 9/11 Remembrance Day, would like to share some of our recent events and also the program ahead from my lab.

Late Breaking Presentation
We are pleased to share that the "Late Breaking" Research submission
Title: "Focused irradiation of EDL muscle bundle and functional study- a feasibility study.
 Dr. Rao Papineni & Dr. George Rodney
was accepted at the  Radiation Research Society  (RRS 2017) Meeting at Cancun.  This Work from Papineni & Rodney Labs will showcase the Feasibility & the Novel Approach in Assessing Radiation Effects on individual Muscle.  With one in three cancer patients loosing the battle due to muscle related issues, this technological advance will be crucial in future mitigation studies. This work will highlight the design and development of a miniaturized X-ray muscle Irradiation system.
#Cachexia #MuscleAtrophy #X-Ray  

The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society is to be held at the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach in Cancun, Mexico on October 15-18, 2017. The scientific program covers state-of-the-art in radiation sciences with an emphasis on Translating Radiation Research: From Risk to Therapy.  Here, I had the privilege to design and develop a symposium on a new and growing field of Radiobiophotonics.

SYMPOSIUM  Recent Advances in Radiobiophotonics, Nanomedicine and Imaging
  
Chair: Dr. Rao Papineni



Look forward to seeing many of you at Cancun.


Finally, adding the short article that was requested by a Tabloid to showcase the 25 year achievement in grooming young minds towards advance science, medicine and innovation.

 http://www.chennaicitynews.net/news/nextgen-cancer-warriors-in-making-by-dr-rao-v-l-papineni-53722/

               
              NextGen Cancer Warriors in Making
                                    by Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni
 
The bitter truth is that cancer the deadly human scourge will plague humanity for generations to come.  We might have to chalk out Moonshot, Mars, and Jupitershot battles with time, to win this war.  A silent movement has been taking place at scores of research labs to coax, cajole, and entice young minds to get baptized into Cancer Research.  We invite High School students and impart scientific knowledge, training, and encouragement grooming them for future science and medicine program.  High school/college students join my laboratory or Papineni Labs Projects elsewhere during summer as interns and broaden their horizons. We are proud to celebrate 25th summer in training young minds akin to gurukul traditions.  At every opportunity, I keep remembering my favorite teacher (Hindi) Mr. K. Sridhar from Hindu Theological high School, Madras.  He used to inculcate us with appropriate slokas the power and value of knowledge transfer and to train students. 
The bitter truth is that cancer the deadly human scourge will plague humanity for generations to come.
It all started when my mentor Prof. Tom Boyde at University of HongKong asked me one summer day early 1990’s to draft a plan and proposal to train a summer student from Eton College, United Kingdom.  Thus I started with this heart-warming knowledge transfer program.  Though all students did not directly work on cancer related projects, they definitely had scope to pursue oncology ahead.  I still recall the first mini-project Jonathan Leong of Eton worked on-  To trick the immune machinery in making better affinity antibodies.  Simple idea back in 90’s I believed, turns out a useful path for current cancer immunotherapy.
Dr.Jyotsna Rao with Arnav and Pranayi
  They themselves have their own robust summer training programs.  This summer turned out to be exciting with couple of high school students Arnav Sankaranthi of Fremont, California, and Ms. Pranayi Pala of Dallas, taking courage and embarked on a trans-continental trip to work on a collaborative project on Radiomics.  They both joined Dr. Jyotsna Rao at Apollo Hospital India learning all about cancer Diagnostics while working on other project.  Both these kids accomplished quite a lot during the 2- week program and are working on a short review article.  Earlier this summer, Arnav along with his twin brother Abhinav  Sankaranthi and Ms. Somya Moyya of UCSD went through training at Dr. George Rodney’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. 


                 students/interns                                                                                                                         

  There is no clear data; however I believe these summer research programs going on for decades all over the globe have generated great cancer warriors.  The cross-border and trans-continental training programs will add new perspectives and sharpen the skills of the young minds. It’s time to collaborate, exchange ideas and skills in this combat.   Cancer: the horrid scourge is not invincible.   
In an Industry setup, my lab had more opportunities to young minds from different walks of life. I am grateful to my friends and collaborators Dr. Shahid Umar of KUMC, Dr. George Rodney, Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Jyotsna Rao, Apollo Hospitals, and others who help in this process.


Summer Science and Lab Fun



Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni is an Adjunct faculty member at University of Kansas Medical Center, and a molecular theragnostics scientist at PXI,  USA. He received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry from University of Hong Kong (British Terr). Dr. Papineni had his early education from University of Madras, where he earned his Bachelors and Master’s Degree. After ten years in Research and Faculty positions at University of Hong Kong and Baylor college of Medicine (USA), he joined Kodak/Carestream Health, USA.  Dr. Papineni has made several inventions and chaired scientific sessions in International
















Papineni Labs are Biomedical Research Labs in Honor of my Father Mr. Papineni Venkateswara Rao.



    "Molecular Imaging - Wisdom to See for Maladies to Flee"
                                                         
                                                                                   Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni