Medical Students Bike Across Country To Benefit Leukemia Research

From left, Cheyenne Beach, Nikki Goulet, Jared Spilka, Lindsay Brown, Mike Brown and Josh Weinshank will ride bicycles coast-to-coast for charity.

Photo by Lea’s Foundation

Four students at the School of Medicine are trying to raise money to fight blood cancers, so they’re flying to San Francisco next month.

Then they’ll spend the next nine weeks on bicycles, pedaling their way back to Connecticut.

It’s for the 2007 Coast-to-Coast for a Cure, to benefit Lea’s Foundation for Leukemia Research.

“I believe the improvement of cancer management and treatment is an incredibly important topic to which science and humanity must devote their utmost efforts and resources,” says Lindsay Brown, one of six riders taking part this year.

Brown, Jared Spilka, Nikki Goulet, and Cheyenne Beach are members of the class of 2010 at the UConn School of Medicine. Brown’s brother, Michael, an undergraduate at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., and Josh Weinshank, a law student at Western New England College in Springfield, are joining them.

“This ride has special meaning for me,” Weinshank says. “My mom is an eight-year survivor of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.”

“It took a lot of caring, hard work, and dedication to train for a 4,000-mile journey,” says John Namnoun, President of Lea’s Foundation.

The first Coast-to-Coast for a Cure was organized by UConn medical students Ben Ristau and Jeremiah Tracy, who also completed the ride.

Tracy’s mother had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in 1997, and died two years later.

This year’s goal is to raise $100,000 for Lea’s Foundation, which provides financial support to blood cancer research efforts at the UConn Health Center.

The Foundation has pledged $1.25 million for a Center for Hematologic Disorders on the Health Center campus in Farmington.

“The funds we raise are being used to propagate amazing research that could change the future of leukemia treatment and care,” Spilka says.

The six riders leave for San Francisco June 10, and plan to arrive at the Health Center on the 58th day.

Details of their cross-country itinerary, as well as information on how to make a contribution or become a sponsor, are available at www.leasfoundation.org.

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