Tackling cancer on a new front
Cancer, which has been predominantly a disease of industrialized nations, is rapidly encroaching on the developing world as people live longer and diagnostic technology improves. Cancer now kills more people in developing countries than HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined, according to the World Health Organization.In India, about a million new cases are diagnosed every year, and that number is projected to triple in the next 20 years. Efforts are now under way in India to make cancer research a priority — an endeavor that is getting a boost from a new program at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.The new program, funded by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chair and managing director of Biocon, one of India’s largest biotechnology firms, will bring Indian scientists to MIT to train for two years. Those researchers will then return to India to help jump-start cancer research programs there.“As an entrepreneur whose company is...