The Center for Scientific and Industrial Research-Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB) director, Dr Mohan Rao has expressed his willingness to collaborate with cardiologists for doing research to find out effective solutions for cardiac problems in the country.

Dr Rao has also advocated that the medical field in the country needs to undergo a massive change to handle the disease burden of future effectively. While inaugurating the 19th annual conference of AP Cardiological Society of India (APCSI) at Park Hyatt in Hyderabad, the CCMB director opined that there are massive scale changes happening in the medical field across the globe. The medical fraternity in the country needs to be updated regularly about these developments and adopt these changes at the earliest so as to deal with the future healthcare problems effectively.

The APSCI conference was mainly aimed at enhancing the scientific awareness among the doctor community about the latest trends in cardiology and allied areas. The conference also discussed on prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and impact of changing lifestyles on human health. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rao said, “In three to four years time we can do DNA sequencing in 15 minutes and based on pharmacogenetics we can design and administer tailor made medicine specific to the patient. This tailor made medicine will effectively combat the disease and minimise side effects in the individual.”

Pharmacogenetics is a study of genetic differences in metabolic pathways which can affect individual responses to drugs, both in terms of therapeutic effect as well as adverse effects.

While giving highlights of scientific developments at CCMB, Dr Rao said, “We are transiting to cell based therapy from the current chemical based therapy.  It was presumed that stem cell therapy is possible for treating all parts of the body except heart, but now evidence is available of stem cells being present in heart and stem cell therapy is possible in heart too. A new heart valve can now be created by growing the stem cells on a biodegradable scaffold. This way we can correct several heart related ailments.”

In this regard, the CCMB director had also expressed his willingness to collaborate with cardiologists to do research. “Scientists and doctors should join hands to address various health problems,” said the director.