A Letter from Dr. Ashirbani Saha
Hello BRIGHT Run Family,
I attended this year’s Celebrate Life with Lights gala presented by Navneet Sharma and her Cancer Warrior team. I was honoured to light candles that symbolised life’s light and the festival of lights, called Diwali.
I was born and brought up in the state of West Bengal, India. In this state, Diwali celebrations take place in the evenings, often together with another festival, called Kalipuja.
I was the youngest in my family and was entrusted with the duty of placing and lighting candles on our roof during these festivals. I made sure to relight those candles, if any were extinguished by a blast of wind.
While those were happy memories, it was one of those days in this festive season, when one of my parents’ friends lost her battle to breast cancer.
This was in the late 1990s. The incident had a deep impact in my young mind, as the woman had a daughter close to my age. Life without mom was not imaginable.
But I didn’t study medicine. I liked biology. But I heard about dissecting frogs as part of the biology coursework at higher-secondary (equivalent to Grades 11 and 12). That was enough to repel me.
I qualified in the entrance exams for engineering and studied electronics and telecommunications, without having any hint of the fact that my studies and research would have an impact on breast cancer research.
I never thought then that I would witness an event which connects breast cancer, engineering, and Diwali in a single thread for me and with such positive energy and hope.
Hope begets hope.
Hope begins with a seed. A seed that you sow when you spread awareness about cancer and work hard to contribute funds to cancer research.
Hope grows when researchers use those funds for purchasing equipment, paying salaries for their research personnel, conducting experiments, and translating their findings into actionable insights for some unmet need.
Hope grows when there is support for opportune avenues and cutting-edge research.
So, thank you.
With Season’s Greetings,
Ashirbani
Dr. Saha is the first holder of the BRIGHT Run Breast Cancer Learning Health System Chair, a permanent research position established by the BRIGHT Run in partnership with McMaster University.
