By TCN News,
Patna: Dr Mumtaz Naiyer, a post-doctoral scientist, Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton (United Kingdom) highlighted the role of Natural Killer (NK) cells and its significance for the Human body, especially in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases such as Hepatitis C.
As part of his invited lecture – on the topic “NK Cell Signaling: Inhibition, Antagonism and Peptide Mediated NK cell activation” – at the Central University of Bihar on Monday, said the Natural killer cells (NKs) are important part of the body’s defense system expressing both activating as well as inhibitory molecules on their surface. “These enable the immune system to fight against viral infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C as well as cancer,” he said.
Referring to presently available therapies targeting NKs, the Bihar-born scientist hailing from Kishanganj district, said the scientists have used either cytokines, which have a number of systemic side effects thus limiting their use, or cellular therapies, which are extremely expensive.
Dr Rizwanul Haque, head, CBS thanked Dr Naiyer and said his talk was quite pertinent in today’s context especially in India including the city of Patna, where cases of Hepatitis C are increasing at an alarming rate, a release said here.
Earlier, Dr Jawaid Ahsan, Assistant Professor, Centre for Biological Sciences (CBS) and coordinator of the weekly seminar series introduced the guest to faculty members and students from the Departments of Biotechnology, Life Sciences and Bioinformatics along with staffs of the university.