NEW YORK: Young Sri Lankan research scientist, Hasini Jayatilaka has been named by the prestigious Forbes magazine in its annual “30 Under 30” list of young innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers, who are changing the world and identified as leaders for the next generation.
‘Forbes 30 Under 30′ is a list issued by Forbes every year to recognise and celebrate the achievements of the next generation of business leaders, visionaries and game-changers across diverse fields. The 2019 edition of the ’30 Under 30′ list released by Forbes on November 13 features 600 trailblazers across the United States and Canada – 30 figures in each of the 20 industries that make-up the list, and who are all under 30 years old.
The 28-year old Hasini was named in the Science category of the ’30 Under 30’ list for her breakthrough research at Johns Hopkins University in the United States that gives new hope for cancer treatment. Hasini, who was born in Australia, and raised in Colombo, came to the US in 2009 to pursue a bachelor’s degree and eventually earned a PhD at Johns Hopkins University in chemical and biomolecular engineering. The daughter of highly qualified professionals (her mother is a lawyer and father an engineer), Hasini, a resident of Redwood City, California, has done Sri Lanka proud with her achievement in medical research and subsequent entry into the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ list.
The internationally renowned Forbes convenes and curates the most-influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business and making a significant impact on the world. The Forbes brand today reaches more than 120 million people worldwide through its trusted journalism, signature LIVE events, custom marketing programs and 40 licensed local editions in 70 countries.The 2019 ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ list list features a unique panel of honorees. According to Forbes, choosing these honorees among thousands of nominees is a daunting three-layer process that relies on the knowledge and authority of a wide-reaching community, skilled reporters and expert judges.
Hasini, who is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University in the US, ranked as one of the world’s top research universities, was selected by the eminent judging panel appointed by Forbes for discovering a signalling pathway that controls how cancer cells metastasize through the body and a way to block that pathway.
Hasini and her fellow researchers at the Institute of NanoBioTechnology at Johns Hopkins University discovered the biochemical mechanism that tells cancer cells to break off from the primary tumor and spread throughout the body, a process called metastasis. Some 90 percent of cancer deaths are caused when cancer metastasizes. The team also found that two existing, FDA-approved drugs can slow metastasis significantly. This has led to the development of new therapeutics currently moving through the pipeline aimed at targeting tumor growth and metastasis.
Hasini’s research findings have achieved global recognition, and in addition to Forbes, leading newspapers around the world have highlighted her path-breaking study. The Baltimore Sun said that the theory Hasini developed as a sophomore at the Johns Hopkins University while working in a lab studying cancer cells is now a bona fide discovery that offers significant promise for cancer treatment. The Times of India said that in the ongoing war against cancer, an international team including Hasini and other scientists from Johns Hopkins University has, for the first time, found what causes the spread of cancer and what could slow it down.
“A female patient with breast cancer doesn’t succumb to the disease just because she has a mass on her breast; she succumbs to the disease because [when] it spreads either to the lungs, the liver, the brain, it becomes untreatable,” said Hasini, who also holds a Bachelor of Science in chemical and biomolecular engineering that she had obtained earlier at Hopkins.
“There are really no therapeutics out there right now that directly target the spread of cancer. So what we came up with through our studies was this drug cocktail that could potentially inhibit the spread of cancer.”
Hasini is the lead author of the study that was published online in the journal Nature Communications. The team is now set to test the effectiveness of the drugs in human subjects.
The researchers found that when cancer cells get densely packed they secrete two proteins that deliver a stark message to other cancerous cells: go away. This causes the cancer cells to break off from the pack and float through the blood stream or lymphatic system to other sites and start growing afresh.
“It’s like waiting for a table in a severely overcrowded restaurant and then getting a message that says you need to take your appetite elsewhere,” said Hasini.
“We found it was not the overall size of a primary tumor that caused cancer cells to spread, but how tightly those cells are jammed together when they break away from the tumor.”
Providing another analogy, Hasini said: “If you look at the human population, once we become too dense in an area, we move out to the suburbs or wherever, and we decide to set up shop there. I think the cancer cells are doing the same thing.”
Typically, cancer research and treatment has focused on shrinking the primary tumor through chemotherapy or other methods. But, the team said, by attacking the deadly process of metastasis, more patients could survive.
Contrary to the hair loss, nausea and other negative side effects patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer, Denis Wirtz, Johns Hopkins’ vice provost for research and director of its Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, who was a senior author on the paper, said the side effects from the drugs used in the study would be minimal. The drugs the team used were Tocilizumab, a rheumatoid arthritis treatment, and Reparixin, which is being evaluated for cancer treatment.
Wirtz predicted a future where cancer would be fought with a mix of chemotherapy to shrink the primary tumor and drug cocktails like the one the Hopkins team developed to ensure it would not metastasize. He compared such a treatment to how HIV/AIDS is treated today.
