BME Distinguished Lecture Series (Zoom): Nimmi Ramanujam, Duke University

Addressing the Structural and Social Barriers to Global Cancer Inequities through Biomedical Innovation

Abstract: The latter half of the 20th century witnessed major reductions in infant and childhood deaths in developing countries. The upshot is that many more people are living to adulthood and old age. Ironically, however, cancer is rapidly out pacing the incidence of infectious diseases. The cancer statistics are staggering. More than two-thirds of the 10 million annual cancer deaths occur in developing countries, and this number is expected to double by 2040. Yet, the allocated cancer resources are less than one-third that in developed countries. With rapid advances in low-cost, high-performance health care innovations, we have the opportunity to leapfrog from entrenched models of cancer care that have been a mainstay in affluent settings to innovative modalities of care – analogous to the demise of landlines in favor of modern cell phones. This is an exciting and realistic prospect. In my talk, I will provide examples of specific technologies we are developing to address global cancer inequities, a challenging task given the limited resources available to adopt models that are currently in place in high income countries.

Bio: Nimmi Ramanujam is the Robert W. Carr Professor of Biomedical Engineering, a faculty member in the Global Health Institute, Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biology at Duke University. Ramanujam is an innovator, educator and entrepreneur. Her mission is to develop technology that will have a wide-reaching impact in women’s health. She directs the center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke, where she empowers trainees at Duke and beyond to create impactful solutions to improve the lives of women and girls globally. Ramanujam’s research focuses on breast and cervical cancer. Her goals are to design innovations that enable complex referral services often reserved for hospitals to be accessible at the community/primary care level, develop technologies to see and treat women with early stage disease in one visit and to develop tools that will make cancer treatment more effective and efficient.