Indraneel Mittra

Indraneel Mittra FRCS (England), FASc, FNA (born 28 June 1943) is an Indian cancer surgeon, basic research scientist, and public health researcher. He is the Dr. Ernest Borges Chair in Translational Research and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Surgical Oncology, Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Mumbai. He established the first dedicated multi-disciplinary Breast Unit in India – a model which has since been adopted by most centers in the country. He pioneered the discipline of clinical research in cancer in India and pursued the cause of improving cancer care in the developing world. In this context, and with an RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United States, Mittra spearheaded one of the largest randomized trials of screening for early detection of breast and cervical cancer using low-cost technology approaches involving 150,000 women in the suburbs of Mumbai. He is the first Indian recipient of such a competitive grant from the NIH. In the field of laboratory research, he is credited with having discovered the wide-ranging biological activities of cell-free chromatin particles (cfChPs), which have critical implications for human health and disease, and how deactivating cfChPs can have many therapeutic effects. Prof. Mittra’s current research interests revolve around studying cfChPs in the context of evolution.

Biography

Mittra was born in New Delhi in 1943 to a family of doctors, with both his father and grandfather being eminent physicians. Mittra studied medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, University of Delhi and graduated in 1965. He received his surgical training in the UK at the Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School (now amalgamated with Imperial College, London), Royal Sussex County Hospital, and Guy’s Hospital in London. He subsequently became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1971, and received his PhD in Medicine (cancer biology) from the University of London in 1977 under the guidance of Professor Israel Doniach. He then completed his post-doctoral training under Nobel Laureate Dr. Renato Dulbecco at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in London (now amalgamated with Cancer Research UK). He followed this up with a stint at St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research in London as a Post-doctoral Fellow.

Legacy

On returning to India in 1982, Mittra joined the Tata Memorial Centre as a consultant surgical oncologist. His most significant legacy is to have inspired an entire generation of young clinicians towards the path of critical thinking, intellectual inquiry, and scientific temper which played a role in transforming TMC from a service hospital to a vibrant academic institution that is now affiliated to the Homi Bhabha National Institute – a deemed university. Mittra is considered to be the founder of breast cancer surgery as a specialty discipline in India. He became Professor Surgical Oncology and Chief of Surgical Breast Service at TMC and trained and mentored many surgeons who are now renowned in their own right. In the field of public health research, his randomized trial of screening for early detection of breast cancer using clinical breast examination, and of cervical cancer using visual inspection of the cervix, involving 150,000 women, is considered to be a landmark study that can save thousands of lives annually if implemented in low- and middle-income countries. With regard to laboratory research, Mittra made his first scientific contribution as a single author paper in the journal Nature in 1974. This publication opened up many research avenues on the role of the thyroid hormone in breast cancer and its relationship with prolactin. He has worked extensively on prognostic factors in breast cancer and their relationship with treatment outcomes. In the last 20 years, Mittra’s research has revolved around the consequences of cell death and the myriad biological activities surrounding cell-free chromatin particles (cfChPs) that emerge from dying cells. His research has led to the discovery of the role of cfChPs in chemotherapy- and radiotherapy- induced toxicity, sepsis, ageing, cancer, and the immune system. Mittra has also discovered how the harmful effects of cfChPs can be mitigated by combining the nutraceuticals Resveratrol (R) and Copper (Cu). He has shown that the R-Cu combination leads to the generation of oxygen radicals, which can deactivate cfChPs with therapeutic effects. Mittra has successfully shown that R-Cu treatment is effective in humans in reducing toxicity from chemotherapy, prevention of death from severe COVID-19, and reversing the aggressive behavior of cancer.

Awards and recognition

Mittra was elected to the fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy in recognition of his contribution to the field of cancer. He held the Pearce Goulde professorship at University College London (1999).  Mittra has been on the editorial/advisory boards of The British Medical Journal, The Lancet Oncology, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, the British Journal of Cancer, European Journal of Cancer, among others. He holds a US patent (no. US 9,096,655 B2) titled “Method for in-vivo binding of chromatin fragments”.