Bio-repository & Cancer Registry Projects at DUHS

Bio-repository and Cancer Registry Projects inaugurated at DUHS

KARACHI, March 2014: The inauguration ceremony of Frozen Sectioning and Bio-repository & Cancer Registry Projects was organized at the Department of Pathology, Dow International Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences Ojha Campus.

Prof. Naeem A. Jafarey - Chief Guest on the occasion said that in this era of Molecular Pathology, Gene Chip Technology is the futuristic approach to be adopted by the universities as a priority for disease diagnosis and treatment. Dow University has upgraded state of the art, histopathology laboratory set up with the recent addition of the cutting-edge frozen section facility. He congratulated the Vice Chancellor of Dow University for extraordinary performance and achievements.

Prof. Masood Hameed Khan - VC, DUHS in his address revealed that a Cancer Study Group has been formulated at the DUHS for early screening and cancer prevention and now all these areas of cancer investigations need to be linked at the Dow University for devising public health initiatives.

Prof. Dr. Talat Mirza - Head of Pathology Department, DUHS stressed upon the addition of Molecular Pathology section in the Histo lab as in future cancer typing and treatment would be largely through genetic assays. He also updated the audience about the up-gradation of the histopathology lab and frozen section facility, which has been initiated in this month. Apart from this, the launch of Biorepository project led by Dr. Muhammad Furqan Bari and Cancer Registry Project project led by Dr. Muhammad Asif Qureshi was also celebrated.

Dr. Muhammad Asif Qureshi - Assistant Professor Pathology: Dr. Qureshi emphasized upon the fact that we need to develop our own trends and patterns of tumour profile through the data generated in the histopathology section. This will, in future, contribute towards national level statistics. Establishment of cancer registry will not only allow us to generate cancer burden statistics, but will also enable us to devise therapeutic strategies as well as public health initiatives.

Dr. Muhammad Furqan Bari - Research Consultant Pathology emphasized that; as this is an era of gene chip technology therefore we need to develop our own distinct genetic profile for targeted therapy in future. The Biorepository project will allow collection of high quality biospecimen, which will help build national resource that will help design novel therapeutic strategies including personalized medicine, using genetic make up of our genetically distinct population.