THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Sept 22: An Indian startup
mentored and curated by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) for
the ‘She Loves Tech Global Startup Competition-2019’ in
Beijing has won accolades at the meet.
Odisha based researcher and entrepreneur Dr Nusrat J M
Sanghamitra was honoured at the meet for the path-breaking
cancer drug delivery device developed by CyCa OncoSolutions
founded by her.
The molecular drilling device that can inject directly
and precisely anti-cancer drugs to the affected cells,
developed by the Odisha-based research and technology startup,
has been hailed as a breakthrough in cancer treatment, a press
release here said.
‘She Loves Tech’ is a global platform committed to
building an ecosystem for technology, entrepreneurship and
innovation that creates opportunities for women.
Cyca OncoSolutions had earlier won honours at the She
Loves Tech India meet, organised by KSUM in Kochi recently.
Following this, KSUM sent Dr Nusrat to the four-day boot
camp in Beijing and subsequently she made her way to the
global summit.
Cyca OncoSolutions bagged the third prize at the summit,
held to identify and encourage innovative and successful
technological ventures promoted by women.
Startups from Germany and US bagged the first two prizes
at the summit, which had lined up 15 women led enterprises
from around the world for the final round to present their
imaginative and trail-blazing products and ideas.
Cyca OncoSolutions has developed an efficient, non-toxic
invitro and in vivo delivery method for various clinical
applications, especially for cancer therapeutics, the release
said
Since the nano technology based molecular drilling device
has proved effective in delivering anti-cancer medicines to
the affected cells directly, it is expected to cause minimum
harm to the unaffected cells and to reduce the side-effects.
A method that can radically improve the quality of lives
of nearly 15 million cancer patients worldwide, itreduces the
quantum of drugs substantially due to its precision method,
besides being able to skip their side effects and making
cancer manageable.
“This technology can also sharply bring down the economic
and social cost of managing cancer, which especially is a
major issue with public healthcare systems the worldover,” Dr
Nusrat said.
“Entrepreneurship is not just a career option. It is a
way of life. It’s a mindset that strives to make a difference
in people’s life and to make a positive impact on society by
ones professional and personal endeavours”, Dr Nusrat added.
Besides its application in cancer treatment, it can also
be used for delivering anti-biotics into drug resistant
microbes and as a one-shot gene therapy tool box.
Starting its operations from KIIT-TBI Bhubaneswar, the
company recently moved to NCL Innovation Park, Pune, and its
Irish branch operates from University College, Cork.
Initially a researcher and scientist in Chemistry, Dr
Nusrat’s focus was to find a better anti-cancer drug with
fewer side effects.
So she shifted her research to protein engineering,
biophysics and cell biology. (PTI)
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