Professor Arunasalam Dharmarajan and Professor Marco Falasca in Goa, India.

Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) and Curtin School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences researchers Professor Marco Falasca and Professor Arunasalam Dharmarajan were recently part of an impressive line-up of invited speakers at the 4th International Conference on Translational Research in Goa, India.

Speakers came from across the host country as well as Australia and the United States to provide research insights under the conference theme of ‘Recent developments and Innovations in Human Health and Agricultural Research’. In particular, the focus was on pre-translational to translational research in human health and agriculture research.

Professor Falasca, who is part of CHIRI’s Metabolic Signalling Group, presented his research on the clinical and therapeutic significance of ABC transporters expression profiles and functions in pancreatic cancer. His research looks at how targeting ABC transporter proteins, which evidence shows directly contribute to cancer progression, may help to improve the effectiveness of current pancreatic cancer therapies.

Professor Marco Falasca.

Professor Dharmarajan shared his research on DDX20, a protein which was found to be a novel regulator of Wnt signalling – an important pathway in the development of many different cancers – and over-expressed in a subset of breast cancers. Some of the findings of this research show that cell growth could be directly regulated by a set of metabolic enzymes that had previously not been shown to be controlled by canonical Wnt signalling.

The three-day conference was jointly organised by the Indian Society of Translational Research; National Cancer Institute – AIIMS; Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Developments; Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology; and National Centre for Cell Science.