Tag Archives: Hifzur Rahman Siddique

AMU Researcher Dr Hifzur R. Siddique Included in the World’s First Expert Consensus Group on NUT Carcinoma

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Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH :

Dr Hifzur R. Siddique, Department of Zoology, AMU, has been included as a part of the world expert consensus on the strategy to diagnose and treat NUT carcinoma

Aligarh:

Dr Hifzur R. Siddique, Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, who has been doing research on cancer for the last several years, has been included as a part of the world expert consensus on the strategy to diagnose and treat NUT carcinoma.

Dr Siddique is the only Indian to become the part of 101 scientists from different countries, including USA, UK, China, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Austria, Singapore, Egypt, and Russia to work on the NUT Carcinoma, which was first reported in 1991. It is a rare and highly aggressive malignancy with a dismal prognosis and a median survival of 6-9 months only.

Dr Siddique pointed out that ‘Nuclear protein of the testis’ (NUT) carcinoma is a rare and highly aggressive malignancy characterised by the rearrangement of the NUT midline carcinoma family member 1 (NUTM1) gene and less than 200 cases are diagnosed in the US each year.

He said standardised strategies for its diagnosis and treatment remained unavailable, underscoring the need for an expert consensus. To address this gap, the scientific team prepared this consensus for the diagnosis and treatment of NUT carcinoma. The team comprised medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, pathologists, nurses, molecular biologists, statisticians, and bioinformatics specialists.

The AMU researcher mentioned that the team developed the expert consensus on diagnosing and treating NUT carcinoma using a multidisciplinary approach and the guideline provides eight recommendations, addressing epidemiological characteristics, clinical and imaging manifestations, pathological findings, IHC features, molecular mechanisms and subtypes, prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for this cancer. Furthermore, an international platform has been established to disseminate NUT carcinoma knowledge and patient recruitment, providing patients and healthcare providers’ access to NUT carcinoma-related information and updates on clinical trial recruitment.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News / by Radiance News Bureau (headline edited) / December 26th, 2024

AMU Faculty Discovers a Common Mechanism for the Prevention of Liver Cancer

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Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH:

In a big breakthrough in the field of cancer prevention, Dr Hifzur Rahman Siddique, Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, in coordination with Dr. Keigo Machida, University of South California, USA, has discovered a common mechanism that activates disruption of a single RNA binding protein, MSI-2 binding to mRNAs of the cancer-causing proteins and significantly reduces the synthesis and accumulation of these proteins, reducing HCV infection and proliferation. The single RNA binding protein (named MSI-2) helps to accumulate multiple cancer-causing proteins in patients and helps to proliferate Hepatitis C Virus to promote liver cancer.

Dr. Siddique and the team who have identified this protein by analyzing the liver tissues of 374 liver cancer patients, said, “As we know, alcohol and cholesterol-rich high-fat diet and hepatitis infection promotes cancer initiation, but the exact molecular mechanism is unknown. In this research work, we have discovered that MSI-2 protein helps to accumulate multiple cancer-causing proteins and supports HCV proliferation to aggravate the disease.”

Dr Siddique said that Liver hyperplasia is also reduced in the animal model predisposed to viral infection fed with alcohol mixed cholesterol-rich high-fat diet. This is a very exciting discovery and could serve as a potential therapeutic target for the drug design and give direction to the management strategy for this deadly disease.

“The study has been recently published in Cell Death Discovery (April 2023, available at www.nature.com/cddiscovery),” he added.

Dr Siddique and his team had earlier discovered the molecular pathway that promotes the abnormal division of Cancer Stem Cells that are responsible for cancer therapy failure and Cancer reappearance/recurrence. Their study was then published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications 11 (2020) and found a place in different national and international dailies.

He said that the liver is considered the powerhouse of the body and due to the change in lifestyle, chronic alcohol consumption, high-fat diet, and hepatitis virus infection, the incidence of liver cancer is increasing fast. More than 350 million people are currently infected with hepatitis viruses, out of which 70 million are infected with Hepatitis C. It is estimated that approximately 40 million people are chronically infected with Hepatitis B and 6-12 million people with Hepatitis C. The situation worsens when Hepatitis infection occurs in an alcoholic person.

He said that the discovery is significant in the treatment of liver cancer as blocking the identified protein has an immense effect on liver cancer in the animal model and also stops the accumulation of the number of human cancer-causing proteins, the proliferation of hepatitis viruses and improving recovery.

Dr Siddique has been working on Cancer Stem Cells for a decade and has established a dedicated lab to initiate pioneer research on Cancer Stem Cells at AMU with a team of 10 researchers and collaborators from the USA, Russia, China, the UK, India, etc.

Recently, he  got a Patent for his herbal formulation to prevent liver cancer and expecting some extramural grant from the Government of India for further clinical research.

source: http://www.amu.ac.in / Aligarh Muslim University – AMU / Home> AMU News / by Public Relations Office / May 01st, 2023