CANCER THE NEW CURES

Cellular intervention promises to change the way the emperor of maladies is diagnosed, treated and perhaps even cured in India

When Rahul Purwar returned to India in 2013 after training at Harvard Medical School in immunotherapy, a branch of precision or customised oncology that uses the body’s own immune system to prevent, control and eliminate cancer cells, he found the protocol entirely missing in the country. “There were only three options for patients—chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. If these didn’t work, you had no other choice—cancer was your death sentence,” he says. Yet, exciting trials on immunotherapy in the US, China, Israel and Europe were establishing it as a technology with the potential to cure cancer. “India had a far greater need for a cure because the country has more cases, but new treatments were being offered in other countries,” he adds.