ALIGARH
Dr Hifzur R. Siddique, a cancer researcher at the Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), has been included as an expert member in the preparation of the world’s first international guidelines for diagnosing and treating NUT carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The guidelines have been published in The Innovation, a prestigious Cell Press partner journal with a five-year impact factor of 40, and impact factor of 25.7 in 2024. Earlier, he was included in the world’s first Expert Consensus Group on NUT Carcinoma, published in Tumor Discovery.
Dr Siddique is the only Indian among 175 scientists from across the globe, including experts from the USA, UK, China, Italy, Israel, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Brazil, Norway, Greece, Austria, Singapore, and Japan, who contributed to these guidelines. The guidelines are now publicly available on ScienceDirect.
Emphasizing the urgent need for standardized strategies, Dr. Siddique noted that, despite the increasing incidence of NUT carcinoma, there had been no unified global guidelines for its diagnosis and treatment. “To bridge this gap, researchers from 90 institutions, including universities, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals, collaborated to formulate these evidence-based recommendations,” he said.
First reported in 1991, NUT carcinoma is a rare and highly aggressive malignancy characterized by the rearrangement of the NUTM1 gene. With a median survival of just 6–9 months, only 20–30% of patients survive for two years.
Dr. Siddique, a cancer biologist, was recently honoured with the Editor of Distinction Award 2025 by Springer Nature. He has authored 132 research papers with a cumulative impact factor of 700 and an average impact factor of 6.7.