Dr. Farrukh Aqil
2017 Presentation Title – Berry Anthos for the Management of Various Cancers
Farrukh Aqil, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville. He received his doctorate in Microbiology from Aligarh Muslim University, India and has extensive experience of over 14 years in phytochemistry, microbiology, cancer biology and cancer prevention. Prior to moving to the United States as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Cancer Chemoprevention Group, he has a faculty in the Department of Biotechnology, Integral University, India.
His research focus is on cancer chemoprevention primarily of breast, lung and ovarian cancers using both standard chemotherapeutic drugs and agents from natural origin like berries. In the last few years, his focus has been to evaluate the effectiveness of selected berries against lung cancer. In another project, he has focused on chemopreventive efficacy and mechanisms of whole-berry and spice powder against breast cancer. He has developed analytical techniques for tissue and plasma distribution of bioactive principles. Finally, he is developing novel combinatorial approaches for the treatment of lung and ovarian cancer by testing natural agents and standard chemo drugs using drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cancer cells.
More recently, he has played a key role in the development of polymeric implants for continuous systemic and local delivery of drugs, a technology which has fetched several patents. Another upcoming drug delivery technology in which he has also played a key role is based on biocompatible exosomes for delivery of small molecules and siRNAs. He showed that exosomes can deliver chemopreventives and chemotherapeutics effectively. He has participated in many conferences and presented his work in the form of 75 abstracts/oral presentations. Dr. Aqil has authored or co-authored over 55 articles in peer-reviewed journals, has 13 book chapters and has edited 4 books. He is an associate editor for the International Research Journal of Microbiology and serves as peer reviewer for more than 30 journals.