As a physician-scientist I have been involved in research and management of patients with leukemia over the last 20 years. Following completion of my specialty training in Clinical Hematology under the guidance of Dr. Mammen Chandy, I spent 3 years in Washington University, St Loius, MO, USA as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Timothy Graubert and Dr. John DiPersio. During this period I trained in stem cell and leukemia biology and was involved in establishing mouse models of some of these conditions and in evaluating stem cell plasticity.

I have since worked and published on various aspects of diagnosis, prognostication and treatment of acute leukemia in India. An innovative therapeutic strategy and a novel protocol of using arsenic trioxide as frontline therapy in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) was reported by us. I have conducted both single and multi-center clinical trials with this agent in India. This cost effective therapy has been widely cited and was instrumental in moving this drug to frontline therapy worldwide in the treatment of APL.

I am currently involved in evaluation of mechanisms of resistance in leukemia with a focus on the role of microenvironment on drug resistance in leukemia. We have recently published our work on mechanism the mechanism of resistance to arsenic mediated by the microenvironment and strategies that can overcome it (Leukemia 30 (11), 2169-2178). We have translated of this work into an ongoing clinical trial and we recently reported on promising data from that study (Blood 128 (22), 446-446).