How one woman transformed cancer treatment in India

Alka Dwivedi's stellar research in immunology helped launch affordable gene therapy for patients in India

- Ameer Shahul

In March 2024, Nature carried a striking headline: 'Cutting-edge CART cancer therapy is now made in India—at one tenth the cost'.

Just a month later, the President of India Droupadi Murmu formally launched the therapy, hailing it as the country's first homegrown gene therapy for cancer. Developed by a team of Indian scientists and cleared by regulators in late 2023, the therapy marked a watershed moment in Indian biomedical innovation.

At the centre of this revolution was an unassuming but determined thirty-five-year-old scientist: Alka Dwivedi.

Dwivedi and her team had achieved what many thought impossible—they had indigenously redesigned the most cutting-edge, patented cancer therapy of the West, capable of curing advanced blood and lymph cancers, and slashed its price by nearly 90 per cent without compromising on efficacy or safety.

It was the kind of medical breakthrough that might have made Dwivedi a household name anywhere else. But lost among the 1.4 billion people of India, she was barely recognized outside her circles, save some mentions in the Hindu and India Today. The Indian media was busy covering political turmoil and parliamentary elections when the news broke, while social media was captivated by the Ambani wedding, celebrity airport looks and influencer feuds. Dwivedi's achievement—one that could save countless lives around the world for decades, if not centuries—was drowned out by clickbait content and election drama.

Dwivedi's journey to this milestone was as remarkable as this cancer vaccine itself. Raised in the narrow lanes of dusty Mirzapur in rural Uttar Pradesh, she completed her schooling and early university in Mirzapur. She then pursed biotechnology for her master's at a little-known university in Nagpur. A brief internship at IISc, Bangalore during her master's opened her eyes to the world of serious scientific research.