The Delhi University has introduced a course in Cancer Biology and Infectious Diseases to promote multidisciplinary research in areas related to cancer. The research programme ‘Cancer Biology and Infectious Disease’ would be an integrated MSc-PhD beginning in July, next year.
University has framed the course in such a way that candidates from 25 different departments would be eligible to pursue the research programme. However, the competition would be too tough for the students to make it in the 12 seats available in this five-year programme.
“It is a highly trans-disciplinary programme to bring Indian traditional knowledge together to find a curable treatment to the deadly disease. Till now every cancer centre and institute has been engaged in trying to combat carcinoma by taking on its various forms but our programme will focus in finding a cure to eradicate it completely.
The research students would be selected from 25 different departments including biology, genetics, chemistry, zoology, geology and others to study the Indian medicines like ayurveda, unani and homeopathy while using tools of modern medicine to find cancer cure,” Director of the Cluster Innovation Centre (CIC), Madan Mohan Chaturvedi told The Pioneer.
He said the programme would attempt to understand cancer completely and then find ways to fight it through traditional methods.
The university has been doing the ground work on the programme from August. It would be started by signing an MoU with Kings College london and MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, Texas. “We have been doing negotiations with foreign university since August this year. The MoU with the college in london and cancer centre in USA is expected to be signed in January or February, coming year,” he said and added that the candidates will have to make it through a cut throat competition.
“We are receiving a lot of queries as a lot of students have developed interest in the programme. Thus, we planned to begin it in July, 2016 with an entrance test to screen the candidates for the limited seats. The candidates would be further shortlisted and called for an interview and then accordingly selected for the programme,” the director added.
He further explained that the much sorted programme also needs a nod from the much awaited vice chancellor of the university. The university is likely to get a new vice chancellor by January, 2016. “As the programme will be a major highlight from the research area in the university, we want to discuss it with the new vice chancellor as well. We thought to start the programme in January but given respective factors, the programme has been scheduled to start in July, 2016,” Chaturvedi said.