Patient Advocacy
Capacity-building & Engagement

Aparna Mittal

Founder & CEO, PatientsEngage

Education: BSc, Bangalore University, MBA, IIM Calcutta

Aparna Mittal is a social entrepreneur with a passion for improving healthcare through patient and family caregiver engagement and empowerment. Building health literacy for people dealing with chronic conditions and their family caregivers with the intent to enable shared decision-making. Advocating for patients and their family caregivers to be seen as lived experience experts and treated as partners in research and health systems decision making.

PatientsEngage (www.patientsengage.com) is a digital first platform that empowers persons living with chronic conditions and their caregivers to share personal experiences and learn from each other as well as healthcare professionals, and make informed decisions for better Quality of Life. In chronic disease management where 95% of care happens outside the clinical arena and information asymmetry significant, the PatientsEngage platform disseminates credible and curated information to empower patients and their caregivers.
(Ref: www.sussex.ac.uk/business-school/research/centres-projects/digital-health-india)

The insights from engagement with patients and caregivers are used to influence the other stakeholders to make system changes to improve health outcomes.

Strengths: Active Listening, Championing for inclusion of patients and family caregivers in various fora, health literacy strategies, Lived Experience Journey Mapping and Insights, Diverse determinants of health, Partnerships and Community Building

Select/ recent project experience & institutional collaborations

• 2025: Guest editor, “Public involvement in research from low-middle-income-countries" collection in RIAE, Springer Nature
• 2024-2026: Capacity Building - Program definition, training and mentoring Cancer Patients to become Patient Advocates in Clinical Research (PARC) in India. Joint Collaboration with National Cancer Grid
• 2025, 2026: Faculty at CReDO
• Chairperson, People-Centric Approaches in Medical Research conducted by ICMR
• 2024 onwards: Member, Indian Childhood Cancer Initiative taskforce
• Patient advocate trainer and mentoring for 3 National Guideline committees for Eye diseases- held by LV Prasad Eye Institute and I HOPE as per NICE guidelines
• Patient Advocate for US-India’s collab Moonshot 2.0 events and workshops
• Member of Equitable Healthcare Access Consortium
• On Course Advisory Committee for Training of Community Champions and Medical/Non-medical Practitioners/Researchers under the NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Multiple Long-Term Conditions
• Training and advising researchers to help their recruitment process and documentation become more patient and public friendly and supporting researchers and committees in their effort to connect with persons with lived experience in a meaningful manner

Publications:

1. Ranganathan Priya, Sengar Manju, Mittal Aparna, Tomar Vivek, Chinnaswamy Girish, Pramesh C S (2026) Patient and public involvement in cancer care and research: the Indian perspective ecancer 20 2084
2. Suresh, V., Mittal, A., Venketeswaran, M.V. et al. Developing a culturally relevant bereavement needs assessment tool (CANCOPE-PI) for caregivers of children with cancer in India: a participatory research approach. Res Involv Engagem 12, 65 (2026)
3. Living smarter with glaucoma. IHOPE J Ophthalmol 2023; 2:25-7.

Poster Submissions:

• Facilitating Access to Information: Recommendations for a Patient-Friendly Clinical Trial Registry-India at the Global Evidence Summit 2024
• Bridging the Gap: Integrating Quality of Life Parameters in Clinical Trials to Align Patient and Clinician Priorities – Insights from an Indian Study at the Indian Society of Clinical Research Conference 2024

Balu Krishna Sasidharan

Professor & Head, Unit 2, Radiation Oncology. Ida B Scudder Cancer Centre, Christian Medical College, Vellore

Dr. Balu Krishna Sasidharan is a Professor of Radiation Oncology at CMC, Vellore. His passion lies in integrating AI and technology to create data-driven solutions that improve survivorship and enhance patient-centered oncology care in India. He has led clinical innovations, directed survivorship research, and developed applications for oncology AI.

His key works include a phase 2 randomized controlled studies investigating the effects of oral resistant starch supplements in cervical cancer; the use of radiotherapy for phyllodes tumor; and the comparison of Clinical Monte Carlo treatment planning with pencil beam planning for nasopharyngeal cancer. He has worked on a comparison of scanning beam proton therapy with photon IMRT for stage III lung cancer and applied machine learning techniques to predict local failure in head and neck cancers using CT and PET radiomics. He has successfully published research studies on the detection of cancer DNA in the plasma of early-stage breast cancer patients.

Dr. Sasidharan has guided and mentored the next generation of oncologists and PhD researchers. He has played a crucial role as an organizer and faculty member for the National Conference on Health Data and AI in 2023 and 2025.

Key Research Focus Areas:

• Head and neck / Lung / prostate cancers / Radiotherapy
• AI integration in health care / technology
• Survivorship/ Involve decision making / Continuum of care

David (Dave) Chuter

Chair, Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice (ICPV)

David (Dave) Chuter is an experienced cancer patient advocate and Chair of Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice (ICPV). Dave was diagnosed with oesophago-gastric cancer in 2006 and has since used his lived experience to help ensure patients are genuine partners in cancer research, policy and education.

He is Chair of Digestive Cancers Europe (DiCE) and Chair of the EORTC Patient Advisory Panel, and is involved in several international cancer research initiatives, including Cancer Grand Challenges.

Dave leads ICPV’s VOICE (Vision On Information, Confidence and Engagement) programme, developed jointly by ICPV and Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London. VOICE is a patient advocate training programme designed to build confidence, knowledge and practical skills, while helping researchers and advocates develop meaningful, long-term partnerships.

His work focuses on making patient and public involvement an integral part of research from development and design through to delivery and dissemination. He is particularly interested in ensuring diverse patient experiences help shape research priorities and outcomes, and in supporting researchers and patient advocates to work together as equal partners.

Key Research Focus Areas:

1. Pan cancer biology
2. Building the partnerships between advocates and research
3. Training and mentorship of patient advocacy to patients and researcher

Durga Gadgil

Research Consultant

Durga Gadgil, an independent clinical research consultant, is currently working also as a consultant with the Tata Memorial Administrative and Research Council (TRAC), Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH). She is the chief coordinator for the two-year MSc in Clinical Research course conducted by the Tata Memorial Centre under the Homi Bhabha National Institute. She is also a GCP Trainer and conducts workshops and seminars for the same. Besides, she is instrumental in setting up the National Cancer Grid Contract Research Organization (NCG CRO) at TMH in 2017, which monitors Investigator Initiated Research which are NCG funded, multicentre studies carried out in India. She is a part of the Organizing committee for CReDO, the research methodology workshop conducted by TMH.

She has 31 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and retired in November 2015 as Area Head, Asia Pacific, Regional Medical Monitoring Organization, Pfizer.

Durga is a certified NABH assessor for NABH Accreditation Standards for Clinical Trials (Ethics Committee, Investigator, and Clinical Trial Site)

During her career span of 30+ years, she has worked in many pharmaceutical companies, all MNCs and one Indian company. She has experience in all fields related to a medical doctor’s role in the industry, like medico-marketing support, regulatory activities, pharmacovigilance and safety reporting, clinical operations, medical monitoring, auditing and training.

My area of interest is

1. Clinical operations
2. Project Management & Training.

Neil Ranasinghe

Co-founder, Paediatric Oncology Reference Team (PORT)

Education: BA

Neil Ranasinghe (BA) is the parent of a survivor of childhood cancer. For nearly 20 years he has been involved with global and UK-based cancer organisations, contributing his expertise as a patient advocate, Technical Author and his leadership capabilities.

Neil is a co-founder of the Paediatric Oncology Reference Team (PORT) - a group of parents that review paediatric oncology clinical trial documentation for parents and patients. PORT has reviewed documentation for over 40 clinical trials and advised on research and trials. This is a long standing and effective collaboration between parents and clinicians to improve the design of trials, make patient documentation more accessible, and ultimately increase participation in clinical trials.

I am attending CReDO to help attendees ensure patients are considered when designing protocols, coach attendees with their presentations, and help write plain English summaries.

Key Research Focus Areas:

1. Embedding patient advocacy in clinical trials
2. Investigating the role of ethnicity in treatment and outcomes in paediatric oncology in the UK
3. Mapping all institutions that treat children with cancer (with SIOP)

Priya Ranganathan

Professor of Anesthesiology, Tata Memorial Centre

Priya Ranganathan works as Professor of Anesthesiology at the Tata Memorial Centre, which is a tertiary-level cancer centre in Mumbai, India. She deals mainly with anesthesia for thoracic surgical procedures especially esophageal and lung resections.

She has a keen interest in clinical research methods and biostatistics and has been faculty on several short courses on these topics. She coordinates a Masters degree in Clinical Research at the Tata Memorial Centre. She is a member of the Institutional Review Board at Tata Memorial Hospital and is editor of the biostatistics section for the journal ‘Perspectives in Clinical Research’.

Priya completed her medical training at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and a fellowship in Clinical Anesthesia at the Singapore General Hospital.

Key Research Areas of interest:

1. Research methods training
2. Statistics for non-statisticians
3. Onco-anaesthesia and peri-operative care

Professor Richard Grose

BSc, PhD, FHEA - Provost

Richard Grose is the Provost of the University of Liverpool Bengaluru, having joined in April 2026 following 21 years as a group leader and Professor of Cancer Cell Biology at Barts Cancer Institute, in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at Queen Mary University of London. Prior to that he studied at the University of Bristol (BSc (Hons) Zoology 1994), University College London (PhD, 1999), and was a postdoctoral fellow at both ETH-Zurich (1999-2001) and Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (2001-4). He has also had two spells in Industry, with Amersham (1990-1) and Pfizer Central Research (1994-5).

His academic studies have focused on cancer cell signalling and crosstalk within the tumour microenvironment, with a particular interest in receptor tyrosine kinases. He has worked on a number of model systems, and more recently has used 3D models for interrogating cancer invasion, particularly using breast and pancreatic cancer models. He has extensive experience in teaching, including having co-founded the VOICE course for cancer patient advocates at Queen Mary.

Prof. Grose also holds Honorary Professor status at the University of Liverpool, Queen Mary University of London, and Wenzhou Medical University.

Key Research Focus Areas:

1. Cancer cell signalling
2. Tumour microenvironment
3. 3D modelling of cancer

Richard Stephens

Chair, UK’s Cancer Research Advocates Forum

Richard has so far survived two cancers and a heart emergency together with late effects and co-morbidities. He has participated in four interventional trials and many other studies. He is a Visiting Lecturer at KCL, a EUPATI Fellow, and the founding co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Research Involvement and Engagement. He has an MA (in History) from Cambridge University, and his professional careers included education, journalism, and local government.

Richard Chairs the UK’s Cancer Research Advocates Forum and is a CONCORD-Lancet Global Commissioner on Cancer Survival. He was the founding Chair of use MY data and a co-founder of the AllTrials Campaign. He is also a member of the European Society of Cardiology Patient Forum, a past Chair of the Stakeholder Forum at BBMRI-ERIC and Vice-Chair of the European CanSERV project’s SAB.

Richard has worked for funders (EORTC, CRUK, Rising Tide, NIHR), for industry (Boehringer, Pfizer, AZ et al) and for the UK Government (Covid, Cancer Strategies). Since 1995 he has helped design and deliver over 70 research studies and programmes and has co-authored over 30 published papers. He is the first patient to lead one of the UK’s cancer clinical research networks (in Living Well With and Beyond Cancer).

Dr Shital Raval-Patel

Medical Advisor/Project Head @ PatientsEngage

General Practitioner (MD) and Lactation Counselor.

She completed her undergraduate studies (BSc in Biological Sciences from Rutgers University) and went on to do her Master’s in Microbiology and Molecular Genetic with research at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in the US. Yearning for clinical experience, she attended medical school in the UK for her MD.

Interested in public health, she moved to India to work in the not-for-profit sector. She worked with Cancer Patients Aid Association and Americares India. Her worked with various local and international NGOs entailed lifestyle disease awareness and education, infection prevention and control, healthcare worker safety programmes for government hospitals. An anti-tobacco activist, she has devoted her time to counsel cancer patients, conduct awareness programmes for children in schools and advocate against tobacco companies.

Since 2013, she has been associated with PatientsEngage, a patient and caregiver centred enterprise that works towards educating, engaging, and empowering patients with chronic illnesses and their family care givers. As a Medical advisor and Project Head at PatientsEngage, she works with various stakeholders to better the lives of patients and advocate for patient engagement and empowerment.

PatientsEngage projects include understanding perspectives of patient and caregiver journeys and empowering patients and caregivers to share these with healthcare stakeholders.

Associations through the work with PatientsEngage:

• Development and Training for First Training Program for Cancer Patients to Become Patient Advocates in Clinical Research (PARC) in India. Joint Collaboration with National Cancer Grid.
• Patient advocate trainer and mentoring for 3 National Guideline committees for Eye diseases- held by LV Prasad Eye Institute and I HOPE as per NICE guidelines
• Patient Advocate representative for NCG’s 2024 and 2025 CREDO workshop on Cancer research.
• Patient Advocate for US-India’s collab Moonshot 2.0 events and workshops.
• Part of Policy reshaping consortium with various Patient groups on PMJAY
• Member of the Health imPACT Coalition - engaging in the UN CSO Conference & Summit of the Future
• Member of Equitable Healthcare Access Consortium
• On Course Advisory Committee for Training of Community Champions and Medical/Non-medical Practitioners/Researchers under the NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Multiple Long-Term Conditions
• Member, ICCI Taskforce on Information & Awareness and Research

Research:

• Independent Library Research with Dr. Robert Herman, Rutger’s University, USA for an Epidemiology case work on Shistosomiasis with a 30 page written paper, 1999.
• Funded Laboratory research in alpha-actinin protein along with a 100+ written thesis at UMDNJ Cancer Institute, USA under Dr Beatrice Haimovich, 2003-4.

Publications:

1. The protein-tyrosine phosphatase SHP-1 regulates the phosphorylation of alpha-actinin. J Biol Chem. 2004 Jun 11;279(24):25755-64. Epub 2004 Apr 7.
2. Study on tobacco use and awareness among marginalized children. Indian J Cancer. 2010;47(Suppl 5):14-18.
3. Tobacco industry tactics with advertisements at the point of sale in Mumbai. Indian J Cancer. 2013;50:245-9.
4. Living smarter with glaucoma. IHOPE J Ophthalmol. 2023;2:25-7.
5. Bridging the Gap: Integrating Quality of Life Parameters in Clinical Trials to Align Patient and Clinician Priorities - Insights from an Indian Study. Poster presented at: 17th Annual Conference of ISCR; 2024 Feb 1-3; Hyderabad, India.
6. Maudgal S, Mitra S, Ranawat N, Baria T, Pavaskar K, Patel S. Geriatric cancer in India. J Geriatr Oncol. 2025;16(Suppl):24. Abstract SIOG2025-P-018. Presented at: International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) Annual Conference; 2025; Ghent, Belgium. Available from: https://siog-2025.elsevierdigitaledition.com/