Dr C S Pramesh is the Director of the Tata Memorial Hospital and the Professor and Head of Thoracic Surgery at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. He is the convener for the National Cancer Grid, a large network of over 170 cancer centres in India. The mandate of the National Cancer Grid is to provide uniform standards of cancer care across the country. Pramesh is highly committed to efforts towards reducing inequities in cancer care and making cancer treatment accessible to all geographic regions and strata of society. He is also a visiting professor at the Division of Cancer Studies, King’s College London and the Institute of Cancer Policy, King’s Health Partners, London.

His primary clinical areas of interest include the treatment of esophageal and lung cancers and minimally invasive surgery. He is the Secretary of the Indian Society for Diseases of the Esophagus and Stomach (ISES). He is the Principal Investigator in several investigator-initiated research studies including randomized trials on cancer screening, surgical techniques, and neoadjuvant treatment of thoracic cancers. He has written more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts and book chapters on topics in his specialty, including esophageal and lung cancers, minimally invasive surgery, tracheal, mediastinal and chest wall tumors, clinical research methods, translational research in oncology and cancer policy.

Pramesh has strong interests in clinical trial designs, surgical trials, comparative effectiveness research, promoting collaborative research and cancer policy. He successfully completed the Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Trials offered by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London in 2010. He is keen on promoting training in clinical research methods and conducts several courses on clinical research methodology, biostatistics and scientific writing. He serves on the core committee of the Clinical Research Secretariat of the hospital.

Pramesh began his training at the Coimbatore Medical College, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in medicine in 1993. He completed a residency in general surgery at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in 1998 and a residency in surgical oncology at the Tata Memorial Centre in 2002. Furthering his professional training, Pramesh completed a thoracic surgical oncology fellowship at the Tata Memorial Centre interspersed with visits to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, USA and the Kurume University, Japan. He joined as a consultant thoracic surgeon in the Department of Surgical Oncology at the Tata Memorial Centre in 2004 where he has remained on staff subsequently.