The Terry Fox Foundation the Canada based body espousing the cause of its illustrious champion against cancer, Terrance Stanley Fox conducts the ‘Terry fox Run- A Marathon of hope’ the world over to raise funds for cancer research and treatment. This August body had preferred Sankara Nethralaya as the beneficiary of its assistance in year 2013, in recognition of the in-depth and pioneering research being carried out by the institution in the field of cancer especially retinoblastoma or cancer afflicting the eye. This year the Terry Fox Run was organized by the Rotary Club of Madras East at the IIT-Madras and in a clear indication of its growing popularity it drew more than 25,000 enthusiastic participants expressing their solidarity with the battle against cancer.
The proceeds of the run were handed over to Dr SS.Badrinath, Founder and Chairman Emeritus Sankara Nethralaya by Shri VGP.Ravidas, President and Shri Badrinarayanan, Chairman, Rotary Club of Madras East accompanied by fellow Rotarians, at a simple function at the Sankara Nethralaya Main campus. The institution decided that the simple unction could be utilized to educate and create awareness on retinoblastoma and what it proposed to do. Addressing the press, Dr Vikas Khaitan, Senior Ophthalmic Surgeon observed that the fact that eyes do not release bio-markers in the blood and tissue biopsy was not possible to ascertain cancer as in other organs of the body made cancer diagnosis a challenging task, he added that the mutation in the blood may be present in future generations too. Expressing his sincere thanks to the members of the Rotary Club of East Madras for organizing the run in an excellent manner Dr S.S.Badrinath expressed that the run being conducted in the past two years has not only aided in raising funds for research on retinoblastoma but created a high level of awareness on the rather less known ailment among the general public. He recalled that Sankara Nethralaya started a study with the Terry Fox Research Institute to look for biomarkers in the blood a year ago and researchers at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology the research of the Medical Research Foundation are hopeful of identifying some critical biomarkers that would help in early diagnosis of retinoblastoma soon.