Events

Every year, more than 900,000 people in the world are daignosed with blood cancer, an umbrella term for a large group of cancers including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma and their subtypes. In India, it is the seventh most common cancer with more than 10,000 cases of blood cancer being reported in children.

This Blood Cancer Awareness Month, join our panel of experts as they talk about the need for prevention and early detection of blood cancer, elucidate determinants of disparities in blood cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality, and identify interventions for blood cancer treatment in India and the world.

PANELISTS:

Rajshekhar Chakraborty
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan
Professor of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute (W.I.A), Chennai

Justine Kahn
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University

CHAIRPERSON:

Ravina Aggarwal
Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai

About the Speakers

Dr. Rajshekhar Chakraborty is currently Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He is a member of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program within Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC). He cares primarily for patients with plasma cells disorders, including Multiple Myeloma, Amyloidosis, MGUS, POEMS Syndrome, and Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia. His research portfolio includes clinical trials of novel agents in plasma cell disorders and outcomes research with a focus on treatment-related toxicities. 

Dr. Venkatraman Radhakrishnan is a Professor of Medical Oncology at Cancer Institute (W.I.A), Chennai, India. His research interests include clinical trials, supportive care, and global health. He is passionate about research in pediatric cancers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). He is actively involved with research and is the principal investigator for various ongoing clinical trials. Dr. Radhakrishnan earned his doctorate (D.M) in Medical Oncology in 2011 from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India and his MD in Pediatrics in 2003 from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, India. He was awarded the silver medal for the best resident during his pediatrics training and gold medal for the best fellow in medical oncology and gold medal for the best research by a fellow at AIIMS. These awards were conferred on him by the President of India. Dr. Radhakrishnan was trained in the United Kingdom for two years under the International Pediatrics Training Scheme of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health.

Dr. Justine Kahn, MD, MS, is a Pediatric Oncologist and clinical investigator conducting health services and outcomes research in children and adolescent/young adults (AYAs) with hematologic malignancies at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in New York. Her primary clinical focus is the treatment of children and AYAs with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH). Her research agenda is aimed at understanding the complex ways in which race, ethnicity, access, and biology combine to affect patterns of care and survival in children and adolescent/young adults (AYA; 15 – 39 years) with cancer. Increasingly, she is focused on understanding barriers to clinical trial participation, as she hypothesizes that under-enrollment in cancer clinical trials is a key driver of outcome disparities in pediatric and AYA oncology. She serves as the Institutional Principal Investigator for the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (DFCI ALL) Consortium at CUIMC, and as the Pediatric Oncology Representative on the CUIMC Minority/Underserved NCI Community Oncology Research Program (MU-NCORP) Executive Committee. Through her work in the pediatric cancer consortia, she participates in the design and implementation of new clinical trials, as well as in the development of embedded health services research studies. At present she is leading efforts to understand the impact of race, ethnicity and age on clinical outcomes in HL and ALL through several externally funded projects within both COG and the DFCI.