Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr Lopamudra Das Roy.
Hi Dr. Das Roy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in a family of physicians, my Grandfather (Late Dr. K.N Das) and Father (Late Dr. Chandra Sekhar Das, an eminent pediatrician) tirelessly served patients in Assam, North-East Part of India & my mother Mrs. Rita Das helped the community with her selfless gestures. I was motivated and followed the path with a passion for Cancer Research to find a cure and treatment modalities. I earned my Ph.D. in Molecular Biology (Genetics) from Assam University, India, and Postdoctoral Fellowship in cancer immunology & metastasis focusing on breast & pancreatic cancer at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in the USA. After this training, I joined the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) as a Cancer Scientist & Research Professor.
I was awarded grants as Principal Investigator from the Department of Defense cancer research program & National Cancer Institute to investigate targeted therapies and signaling pathways in metastatic breast and pancreatic cancer. I also worked as an adjunct Associate Professor at UNCC and Research Director at OncoTab, Inc. My original research work is attributed to numerous high-impact factor publications, inventions, citations, and press releases from the American Association of Cancer Research and public media for breakthrough work on discovering the signaling pathway between Breast cancer metastasis and Arthritis. I also earned my MBA from Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management. I have 21+ years of experience in Research, Teaching, and Mentoring high school, undergraduate & Ph.D. candidates.
The inception of Breast Cancer Hub (BCH)
One of the primary reasons and the underlying factor of late detection to Breast Cancer stems from the level of ignorance that still exists in the developing world about taking care of breast health irrespective of education and socio-economic condition, leading to a significant increase in the death rate. Women are hesitant to discuss any concerns due to the taboo and stigma associated with the word “BREAST”. The situation in the rural sector is grimmer and very critical. Breast cancer screening is a low priority and the knowledge of Breast Self-Examination, Clinical Breast Examination & other screening methods (Mammogram and Ultrasound) is very limited. Women would go to the oncologists usually late when tumors are huge and metastasized to distant organs which becomes an incurable situation leading to a very high death rate.
My dream of building Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) also stems from my discussions with Breast Cancer patients sharing their stories of pain and agony when mammograms failed their diagnosis due to dense breast issues even in the most developed countries in the world such as the USA. My heart sank when I saw young moms dying due to late detection.
Also, Breast cancer in men worldwide is increasing and most men with Breast Cancer seem to have experiences of shock and subsequent embarrassment, battling the “stigma” of having a predominantly woman’s disease. Similarly, the LGBTQ+ community is facing extreme challenges from the healthcare screening and treatment standpoint.
Therefore, over the years, being a Cancer Research Professor, I have realized how lives are lost to Breast cancer and other Cancers in Women, Men, & LGBTQ+ due to taboo, ignorance, lack of awareness leading to late detection, inaccessibility to healthcare facilities, accurate diagnosis & treatment management. All these concerns motivated me to resign from my rewarding career in 2017 and create Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) as my Full-time pro bono humanitarian work, providing 100% Free services, with a dream to save lives by making impactful sustainable changes working at the grassroots level by bridging the gap between the Developed & the Developing Countries.
Our relentless efforts over the years have driven a change by creating a wave, breaking the Breast Taboo and we expanded to working with All types of Cancers in the USA, India, Africa, and Globally, saving innumerable lives each day, penetrating not only the urban society but also focusing on the untapped sectors in utmost need and the underprivileged populace with our grassroots initiatives.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
On the personal front, my family was initially taken aback and many of my acquaintances couldn’t come to terms that I gave up my professional career to work full-time voluntary with 100% free services. It was not easy for me either to make such a decision to depend on my family and lose my financial independence, but certainly, the vision and mission of Breast Cancer Hub were critical and far more important to me compared to continuing my salaried job.
On another note, I have also received criticisms that I need to think of my family rather than the community, questioning my responsibilities as a mother & wife because to conduct outreaches in developing countries, especially India, I had to stay away from my young kids and went to the rural villages and traveled the remote conservative sectors all on my own in public commutes risking my safety. But I was very transparent with my sons (Agastya & Agneya, 6 & 7 years old in 2018) & explained what I was trying to do… their response was “Mamma…please go and save other moms, we are proud of you”.
The road is always hard when our vision is to revolutionize and uproot the fundamental stigmas imbibed in our society since eternity. I was targeting the culture and society-imposed embarrassment & taboo associated with the word ‘CANCER’, especially ‘BREAST CANCER’. The other challenges were the lack of screening awareness for Breast Cancer in Men and the LGBTQ+ populace. The inaccessibility to healthcare facilities, myths, proper diagnosis and treatment management, and other socio-economic factors leading to lack of awareness & late detection in all genders became our next hurdle.
In Developing countries, a huge population is stricken by poverty, with healthcare being the last priority. In the USA, many minority communities delay the early detection screening processes due to the inherent culture of not taking care of Breast health, leading to late detection and death. Therefore, I was fighting not only the access of the rural populace to the hospital system but also the inertia within the urban society to speak about breast concerns due to the ingrained ideology of shyness about Breast health.
Breast Cancer is also increasing in the younger population of all genders with no family history. But, in the USA, Women ages 40 to 44 have the choice to start annual breast cancer screening with mammograms and with no screening for men. Therefore, the need of pushing towards the Breast Self-Exam every month became imperative, which was difficult for the millennials to comprehend and perform due to ignorance and lack of awareness.
Our biggest challenge evolved while executing our mission in the villages Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) adopted starting in February 2020 for door-to-door Cancer Screening, Diagnosis, Treatment Management, Palliative Care, and Counselling. We learned that food was the priority for the villagers, and they hardly saw the face of the hospitals. The villagers were daily wage earners living a hand-to-mouth existence without any savings. On many occasions, there was no one in the family to accompany the patient to the hospital, eventually delaying or skipping treatment. Therefore, our team had to take full responsibility, starting from providing transport, accompanying patients to local hospitals that provided treatment at subsidized rates, assisting with hospital registration, patient communication with the doctor, helping in generating the income certificate to help patients access the government aided schemes, assisting in the full screening & diagnosis process, buying necessary medicines, providing treatment Aid for the remaining expenses not covered under the government schemes, dropping them home with follow-ups & counseling. Covid-19 built new challenges on our roadmap in the villages we adopted but poverty needs to be addressed in a holistic manner, and we addressed this by distributing Masks, Sanitizers, generating safety protocols, providing Food Relief, and taking care end to end.
Every day is a challenge, but our work speaks volumes, as we have been accomplishing our goals by strategically improvising based on the circumstances and the need of the community, keeping the vision and mission intact, with our core values – Ethics, Integrity, and Transparency, with the slogans of our Campaign – #BreakTheBreastTaboo, #BreakTheCancerTaboo, #KnowYourBody, and #TogetherWeSaveLives
As you know, we’re big fans of Breast Cancer Hub. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) is a GuideStar Platinum Certified, Top-rated 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization, registered in North Carolina, USA in 2017. We are a Global family standing against discrimination of color, language, culture, religion, and gender. We serve everyone with equality.
We differentiate and stand apart as a Cancer Organization by creating a unique model where all our services are free of cost and all the donations we receive from our kindhearted supporters are driven toward our mission as we provide sustainable solutions at the grassroots level, taking care end to end. I have built BCH as my Full-time humanitarian service with 100% free services and I share my contacts with the community during the outreaches so that anyone with concerns can reach out to me directly, and I can help and guide at every step, taking accountability.
We are extremely proud of saving lives each day of those Women, Men, and the LGBTQ+ community, especially the untapped populace, whose diagnosis would have been missed without our intervention due to taboo, ignorance, lack of awareness & education, inaccessibility to healthcare facilities, poor socio-economic condition, correct diagnosis, and treatment management.
WHAT WE DO – OUR IMPACT:
VISION: Grassroots Sustainable Solutions Saving Lives Globally.
SAVER – Save Lives by Awareness, Volunteering, Education, and Research.
MISSION: We fight BREAST CANCER in WOMEN, MEN & LGBTQ+. We stand together against ALL TYPES OF CANCER via our BCH WINGS – CANCER HUBS with the following GOALS:
1. Early Detection & Prevention – Awareness, Education, Scientific Seminars, Webinars, Early Detection Screening Cards, Cancer Articles, Informational Videos: BCH generates the one-stop Early Detection Life-saving Cards for All Cancers, Breast Self-Exam Cards in 24 local Languages for Her and Him for the first time, Research papers, educational videos in simple layman’s terms to empower everyone about the symptoms of Cancer, help detect early and treat accurately.
2. Community Outreaches & Cancer screening camps – We save innumerable lives each day by helping to be detected early, analyzing the reports, and navigating suspicious cases to healthcare facilities & affordable options for the underprivileged & uninsured populace. We have follow-ups from patients as I share my contacts during the outreaches & provide scientific treatment guidance for each patient reaching out.
3. Adopting Villages – BCH IS THE PIONEER: Penetrating deeper, going to each member, each household, maintaining database & follow-ups, for Cancer screening, Treatment management & support, Palliative care & Counseling. We monitor & manage each patient individually, case by case.
4. Support Groups, Medical Guidance & Counseling: a) We provide scientific analysis of the cancer diagnosis & treatment; b) We publish stories & interviews of Cancer advocates in local languages to inspire others fighting Cancer; c) We provide Medical Guidance to our patients and support groups, as we stand for each other, emotionally connected.
5. Care Package for BCH patients: We create mastectomy or lumpectomy comfort pillows with a pocket that allows using a cold or hot pack as part of the healing. We make chemo hats and also chemo port seat belt pillows, a gesture to show our Love for our BCH Cancer fighters from the USA.
6. Patient Treatment Bucket: Aids the underprivileged populace in poverty especially in developing countries with diligent follow-ups of the financial assistance utilization, currently serving Africa and India.
7. Research: BCH penetrates the untapped sectors for substantial impactful scientific analysis, working towards changing healthcare policies, need of the hour to help the community. BCH Cancer Research (Clinical data analysis & Epidemiological Research Study) is approved by Institutional Review Board (IRB, USA), & Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC, INDIA), and Africa in progress, with me being the Principal Investigator of the studies.
8. Covid -19 Response: We executed Covid-Awareness sessions Globally. In the USA, we manufactured 1545 Homemade Masks during the extreme mask crisis from April 01 – May 08, 2020, & donated to 26 organizations focusing on Healthcare Centers, Shelters, High-Risk Populations & Essential Services within USA. In India, we distributed Masks, Sanitizers, generated safety protocols, and provided Food Relief to 674 Families (4289 villagers starving & in utmost need) (1st & 2nd Wave) in the BCH-adopted villages in addition to building a Comprehensive list of Covid-19 Treatment Infrastructure Resources for India during 2nd Wave.
9. Leadership Programs: I inculcate the art of scientific thinking & thought leadership in the students, helping with their careers and motivating them to serve the community as leaders executing impactful roles as Volunteers, Ambassadors & Interns.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Only 5–10% of all cancer cases occur due to inherited genetic mutations, the remaining 90–95% have their roots in the environment, lifestyle or can occur randomly. The incidence of cancer has significantly increased worldwide, but early detection is the key to better management and survival. Therefore, we should not ignore the symptoms and take charge of our health.
Let us come together in the fight against cancer, We Save a Life, We Save a Family. #TogetherWeSaveLives.
Pricing:
- 100% of Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) services are free of cost. All donations are driven towards the mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.breastcancerhub.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breastcancerhub/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breastcancerhub/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/breastcancerhub
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BreastCancerHub
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZvTfrE-8pYTKGVPlllC0Yg/videos
- Other: A snippet of BCH: https://youtu.be/mj_V39aA6TI
Image Credits
@Breast Cancer Hub
