Audubon Bioscience Supports AACR to Fight Cancer in Ukraine

Help us raise $3,000 per trainee for young and mid-career Ukrainian medical professionals to attend top U.S. cancer centers.

Houston, TX, March 26th, 2024 – Audubon Bioscience, a private biobank supporting life-saving diagnostics and therapeutics development by providing patient-derived biospecimens with associated clinical data to researchers, continues collaboration with the AACR and the Peace and Development Foundation to support cancer care and research in Ukraine.

At the AACR Annual Meeting in 2022 (two months after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began), Dr. Rostyslav Semikov, CEO of Audubon Bioscience and co-founder of the Peace and Development Foundation, approached Dr. Margaret Foti, CEO of the AACR, with a pledge to help his homeland.

The AACR promptly responded with a commitment to provide relevant and needed resources and assistance to Ukrainian people, including cancer patients and their families, oncology professionals, and cancer researchers. The AACR Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund was established to engage the association’s networks in the U.S. and around the world.

One of the two organizations receiving funding became the Peace and Development Foundation which promotes advances in cancer care in the region by bringing Ukrainian oncologists and researchers to the United States to learn from and share with local professionals.

In 2023 with a grant from the AACR and a donation from Audubon Bioscience, the Peace and Development Foundation arranged a trip of four outstanding Ukrainian oncologists (selected by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine) to attend the AACR Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. They also attended AdventHealth Cancer Institute the flagship hospital.

Hear from the National Cancer Institute of Ukraine on the 2023 trip’s impact in “Modern principles of oncology care: how to adopt the experience and implement it in Ukraine?” and more from the AACR published interview with Dr. Olena Yefimenko, Director of NCI Ukraine.

In 2024, AACR again extended its invitation and financial support for another group of six Ukrainian medical professionals to attend the AACR Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA from April 5-10. Also arranged is a series of individual meetings with top US cancer center managers and leading cancer research experts to network, explore collaborations, and bring best practices in the field of cancer medicine to Ukraine.

Thanks to arrangements by Help Ukraine Group (HUG), on April 10-17 the group will have an observership at the Stanford University Medical Center to network and learn more from their American colleagues. Trips are also planned to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans, LA  for April 18-20 and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX on April 21-28, following kind invitations by local colleagues.

As the world continues to grapple with the complex challenges posed by cancer, initiatives like support for Ukrainian physicians serve as a beacon of hope, signaling a collective effort to overcome barriers and work towards a future free from the burden of cancer. 

We call on you to join hands with Audubon Bioscience in this transformative effort to shape the future of cancer care and make a lasting impact on the lives of patients in Ukraine. Together, we can advance the progress towards a world free from the burden of cancer.