All in the saliva: Lankan prof leads pioneering research on oral cancer
Heavily into biomedical research, a family tragedy propelled her in the direction of the early detection of oral cancer through non-invasive sampling.
Poring over microscopes in her laboratory in Brisbane, Australia, or collecting samples of saliva from people fearful whether they are victims of oral cancer, her efforts have paid off, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States of America (USA) giving the nod to her biomarker.
The face behind this achievement is Associate Professor Chamindie Punyadeera, very much of Sri Lankan origin. She is the Head of the Saliva and Liquid Biopsy Translational Laboratory of the Queensland University of
Technology (QUT) of the School of Biomedical Sciences, Brisbane.
Describing herself as “a research intensive academic”, Prof. Punyadeera (50) is an innovator, translational biomedical researcher and strong advocate for women in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine). She has a team of 14 researchers including 10 PhD students of whom two are Sri Lankan.
Her simple explanation about her work is that she uses non-invasive methods of sampling (such as human saliva) for the early diagnosis of cancer and heart diseases. (See box)
The tragedy that made Prof. Punyadeera launch a research programme on head and neck cancer (oral cancer/mouth cancer and throat cancers are the two main sub-types) was very personal and close to home.
“My brother-in-law was diagnosed with a nasty form of head and neck cancer in 2005 and, sadly, within six months he succumbed to the disease. This is because when he was diagnosed it was late-stage cancer and the cancer had spread to other vital organs. So, there is an unmet clinical need to detect head and neck cancer early,” she says.
Working during these trying times of the pandemic when her laboratory was closed for two to three months and her clinical trials were put on hold for more than six months, she says that the people in Brisbane were “very fortunate” as the COVID-19 case numbers were minimal, compared to the rest of the world.
“Yes, balancing family life with a busy work life is a challenge,” she concedes and has been “my struggle” but her husband, Athanasios
Mylonas, an Electrician/Electrical Engineer, is very supportive, while her Amma and Thaththa live just a kilometre from her home. “They help me a lot.” There is some sadness as her brother, Lasath, is working at the Standard Bank in South Africa and they have not been able to have a family reunion due to COVID-19.
Her one and only son, Vasileios Nirvan Mylonas, is in the International Baccalaureate programme at the Queensland Academy for Science, Mathematics and Technology………“it is too early to say whether he would follow in my footsteps”.
Prof. Punyadeera had left Sri Lanka as a little girl of 11 in 1982, when her Thaththa and Amma headed for Botswana to work. She had returned home in 1984 for her secondary education (Grades 8-12) at Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya, once again leaving her motherland in 1990 for her undergraduate studies at the University of Botswana followed by an MPhil and PhD at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her primary schooling had been at Girls’ High School, Mount Lavinia, where they also lived in Colombo. Her Amma’s ancestral home was in Tangalle and her Thaththa’s in Unawatuna, Galle.
There is a note of nostalgia as Prof. Punyadeera says that among her hobbies of reading, jogging and swimming is also watching Sri Lankan teledramas.
“Of course, I miss Sri Lanka,” she says, sounding slightly indignant that such a query can even be made.
“Though I hold a Dutch passport, my DNA is Sri Lankan. Both my parents are proud Sri Lankans and I was brought up in a culture to value our identity and to know our roots. This becomes very important when you live for so long outside Sri Lanka,” says Prof. Punyadeera.
With regard to her work, her sights are set………..“We are applying liquid biopsy (the use of body fluids in place of traditional tumour tissues) to predict outcomes in head and neck cancer patients, liver cancer, brain tumours and lung cancers.”
This is while Prof. Punyadeera has recently received research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia to develop a biosensor to predict outcomes in patients with heart failure, using saliva sampling as a non-invasive method.
The impact of such research will have far-reaching benefits, for globally more than 38 million people suffer from heart failure, with about 50% of them dying within five years.