BENGALURU: Dr Narayana Subramaniam, a musician and an oncologist who’s also into cancer research, has recently received two major grants - one from the National Cancer Grid to study radiation therapy and the other from the University of Liverpool to form a UK-India Oral Cancer Alliance. His team will be studying the possibility of radiotherapy post surgery to improve quality of life of oral cancer patients. The clinical trial will be conducted in six centres across India. He is one of the four national trial heads and they have been funded `4.2 crore by the National Cancer Grid (Govt of India).
He has also received a grant from the University of Liverpool to form the Oral Cancer Alliance, a partnership with the UK to improve oral cancer outcomes in India with advanced imaging techniques such as neuro-imaging and radiomics. On April 27 and 28, a symposium is being conducted to discuss the same with experts from the UK, US and Singapore. Dr Subramaniam, (30) says, “We need to come up with innovative and unique ways to treat cancer. We cannot depend on Western data as the cases in India are different. Many people from the West get oral cancer due to smoking but here in India, most are diagnosed with oral cancer due to tobacco chewing. The way the cancer presents itself and the biology of the disease is different.”
He agrees that India is improving its research in the field of cancer but says there is still a long way to go. “Some of the best cancer hospitals like the Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson Cancer Center are the best because they conduct clinical research. Indians still have a negative connotation to clinical trials, they think humans are experimented on. What we need to understand is that these clinical trials improve outcomes of treatments. We need to treat more aggressively with low morbidity,” he insists.
He says there might be some malpractices but it’s rare since it involves scrutiny at multiple levels. “These procedures are cleared at the central, state and different institutes and hospitals. Also, we need to have evidences that these treatment options can work,” he says. He says it started off with a competition, Credo, which promotes clinical research, especially in oncology. “Once the trial design is shortlisted, you can turn it into a pitch to get the grant from the National Cancer Grid,” he says.
Hailing from a musical family, he has always been interested in medicine. “My father is a doctor, I guess that’s why I have an interest in medicine. I have never seen music as my career option. It is a big de-stresser. Many of my colleagues listen to music in operation theatres to beat stress ,” he says.