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Biological and Clinical Perspectives of Nano Quantum Dots for Cancer Theranostics
Published in Cherry Bhargava, Amit Sachdeva, Pardeep Kumar Sharma, Smart Nanotechnology with Applications, 2020
Bakul Tikoo, Gagandeep Singh, Ashok Kumar Yadav, Rajiv Kumar, Gurpal Singh, Ashish Suttee
Genetic polymorphisms have been increasingly utilised, especially with respect to drug-metabolizing enzymes that can predict treatment efficacy or complications due to anti-cancer drugs. Genomic variation can lead to differential drug responses in individual patients, affecting drug absorption, metabolism, pharmacodynamics and excretion [10]. The increased understanding of disease provided by pharmacogenetic research is now also being incorporated into the drug development process in order to optimize therapeutic benefits and minimize the risk of toxicity in the individual patient [13]. The identification of genetic alterations that increase the risk for developing cancer is useful for predisposition testing with mutational screening and counseling as part of the established subspecialty of cancer genetics [6].
Some elements of the regime of management of irrelevance in science
Published in Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2022
Posterior reference leads us to the second element to compose the regime, namely, the choice of the object, or, as heard in the interviews, to exoticism. In regimes of management of irrelevance, which usually have few sources of funding, the incentive to do science is focused on objects that serve specific interests. There is a redirection of the research interests, in practical terms as well, ascribing to oneself and others the inability to follow supposedly central research protocols, the inability to reproduce them at a level of excellence and innovation comparable to those of the “center.” The criteria for election of the objects must meet expectations about peripheral research; one must be forewarned about the place in which the search is conducted. We have criteria here, but some laboratories have no criteria whatsoever. A teacher's lab here got public money, and what did she want to do? She wanted to research breast cancer (sic). Breast cancer genetics is the most studied thing in the world. In general, in this day and age you have to be connected to a hospital, connected to a medical team, everything arranged for the thing to work. She did not think about these details; it was a total failure. It's something beautiful, grounded [just] in theory … (Interview with author number 20)9[if] You ask me what I'd choose: do badly what others do well, or do my own, do well, say, do something exotic, of interest to fewer people, journal … . I do the exotic. Ah, but it's not relevant, nobody cites it. We have to conform; you can't aspire to the Nobel by researching sugar cane. (Interview with author number 33)10When I came to Brazil, I had to see where I could contribute and from there define my area of activity. […] The research area that EMBRAPA proposed to me ended up going back to what I had done during my doctorate. It was not exactly the same thing, but it was quite related to the subject of biofuels, renewable chemical compounds. The work that I developed during my doctorate in Sweden was focused on the production of ethanol biofuels, second generation, from wood, what we call biomass. That's what they had to produce from renewable sources. In Brazil, I am interested in doing research with second-generation ethanol, but our main biomass is sugarcane, given the specificities of each country and the industrial structure of each country. […] We have specificities. The entire production of biofuels in Brazil, which began in the 1970s with ethanol, is unique in the world. I have to take into account that the Brazilian problems are the problems of Brazilian industry. But at the same time, from the technical point of view, for the best techniques and best strategies, [I have to consider] the world literature. (Interview with author number 18)11