Sharmila Pimple

Sharmila Pimple, MD, PhD is Professor and Head of the Department of Preventive Oncology at Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Mumbai, India's premier cancer institution. With over 25 years of experience in community-based cancer prevention and early detection, she leads one of the world's most active programs for population-level cancer screening in a low-resource setting. Her department conducts large-scale outreach programs reaching hundreds of thousands of individuals annually across Maharashtra and other Indian states, focusing on cervical cancer, oral cancer, and breast cancer—the three most prevalent cancers in Indian women and closely associated with modifiable risk factors including tobacco use and HPV infection. Dr. Pimple's research on visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) for cervical cancer screening has established the evidence base for this low-cost, no-lab-required approach as a viable alternative to cytology in resource-constrained settings, and her programmatic data have influenced WHO guidelines on cervical cancer screening in LMICs. She has conducted landmark studies on community health worker-delivered oral cancer screening in tobacco-using populations, demonstrating feasibility and cost-effectiveness at scale. Her TMC-based programs have trained thousands of primary healthcare workers in basic cancer screening techniques, creating a cadre of front-line cancer detection capacity throughout India. She is also a principal investigator in HPV vaccination studies in adolescent Indian girls and has contributed to national immunization policy advisory bodies. Her work exemplifies how academic cancer centers in emerging economies can drive population-level impact through pragmatic, affordable approaches to cancer control.