New facility opened at Bangalore's Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center

Mazumdar-Shaw Center for Advanced Therapeutics (MS-CAT), a 100,000 sqft state-of-the-art facility for cancer treatment, was inaugurated at Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center, Narayana Health City, on Friday.

This centre will bring the most advanced therapy modalities used in the treatment of cancer and other complex diseases under one roof. The centre will have India’s largest bone marrow or stem cell transplant facility, and advanced treatment facilities like immunotherapy, gene therapy and biomodulators.

The centre also has tie-ups with several research institutions in India and abroad , such as GANIT labs, Strand Genomics, Cornell University, University of California, Irvine.

“It is a 14-bed transplant unit, so far the biggest in Karnataka. Haploidentical transplants, gene therapy and cord blood transplants are some of the advanced therapies that will be conducted here,” said Dr Sharad Damodar, head, hematology and bone marrow transplant unit, Mazundar-Shaw Cancer Centre.

At the inauguration, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of the centre, said that the centre would focus translational research. “Stem cell therapy, gene therapy, cancer vaccines are all concepts that need to be turned into a reality. MS-CAT will concentrate on cutting-edge research that will help make cancer treatment much simpler,” she said.

Dr Devi Shetty, chairman, Narayana Health City, said, “India will be the first country to dissociate healthcare from affluence. We have to look at different models of coordination between hospitals and research institutions to make this a successful venture.”