The first exposure to the practice of medicine came for Dr. Ray in the bustling city of Calcutta, India where he was able to follow his grandfather, a family practitioner who paid house visits to his patients and would sometimes take his grandson with him. It was also with him that he heard inspirational stories of Mother Teresa whose life was dedicated to the poverty stricken children of Calcutta. When he grew up, it was thus easy to choose a career in medicine.

Then, as a medical student, a colleague was diagnosed with leukemia. While going through the trauma of accepting this reality, Dr. Ray along with five others from their class decided to hold a fundraiser for a bone marrow transplant. Being a close witness to the anguish of a cancer patient, he was able to learn the inside stories of diseases. Although his friend died following an unsuccessful autologous bone marrow transplant, he promised to help more patients with the same condition.

That desire brought him back to the U.S. where he was born. Following his residency in Pediatrics in Long Island, NY, Dr. Ray joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to pursue a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology. While part of the decision to train in Oncology was influenced by life experiences, it was also largely based on the tremendous challenges that this specialty demands. He feels that the success of the human genome project is only one of many recent technological advances that are bound to open new avenues in the treatment of cancer patients. One such aspect is the realm of cellular therapy thus during his training in one of the best cancer hospitals in the world, Dr. Ray was able to participate in research involving Natural Killer cells in the laboratory of Dr. Dean Lee. He maintains his keen interest in Immunotherapy as a means to tackle cancer and looks forward to its many applications in the treatment of cancer patients.

Dr. Ray also has a special interest in Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and other histiocytic disorders.

Outside of work, Dr. Ray enjoys the company of books, music and his family that consists of his daughter Uma and his wife Ayesha, who has an active career in the field of non-profit organizations.

Honors/Awards:

• Recipient, Hyundai Young Investigator Award for $150,000: "Novel Strategy using Mithramycin-A for Enhancing Chemotherapy Response in Ewing Sarcoma Family Tumors" 2015.