Meet the Founder
Aygün Şahin, M.Sc., Ph.D.
How and why Cancer Education and Research Institute® (CERI) was born
Over the course of 20+ years in her career in cancer and cancer research, Aygün Şahin, M.Sc., Ph.D. has noticed the lack of connection between cancer scientists and cancer patients.
Year after year, she received emails and phone calls from people all over the world, asking helplessly for information on their newborn son's brain cancer, grandmother's bone cancer, or mother's lung cancer. They were asking for guidance on research. It was heartbreaking to experience this while she worked in the lab relentlessly to find a cure for cancer.
One late night, while Dr. Şahin was working in the lab as a post-doctoral fellow, she received a call from a friend whose mother was hospitalized for end-stage lung cancer at the research hospital where she was working. She visited her friend's mother every day after work until the day that she received a phone call from her friend that her mother passed away.
Dr. Şahin felt that something here was terribly wrong, something that didn't make sense at all; on her end, she was working on curing cancer while on the other end someone was dying from the disease.
Throughout her 20+ years career, Dr. Şahin has been a mentor for students at every level. During her studies as a cancer scientist, she served as a judge at a science fair at a middle school in Massachusetts. She gets constant emails and calls from similar students all over the world who need guidance and direction for careers in cancer science. She believes we need more outstanding cancer scientists, and we need to develop them today and at younger ages!
All these experiences pressured Dr. Şahin to do something, and to do it NOW! So she followed her true passion on 1) cancer research, 2) education, and 3) helping people to build a nonprofit organization that aims to 1) make cancer and cancer research understandable for everyone; 2) bridge the gap between cancer professionals and cancer patients; 3) provide cancer research scholarships for promising high school students worldwide, career guidance, and mentorship; and 4) conduct in-house innovative cancer research and directly translate it to the public.
She spent a year doing background research, reading law books, building websites, creating business plans, and talking with mentors, to found Cancer Education and Research Institute® (CERI), formerly Cancer Research Simplified, on strong and stable ground on January 30, 2013.
Dr. Şahin is tremendously proud of CERI's achievement over the years. It is a true honor and privilege for Dr. Şahin, her team and for CERI's supporters that CERI was recognized by the United Nations with the UNIATF Award 2019.
For her efforts in global health, Dr. Şahin was nominated by the International Association of Women for the Inspirational Influencer Award 2022.
Learn more about Dr. Şahin’s background.
Over the course of 20+ years in her career in cancer and cancer research, Aygün Şahin, M.Sc., Ph.D. has noticed the lack of connection between cancer scientists and cancer patients.
Year after year, she received emails and phone calls from people all over the world, asking helplessly for information on their newborn son's brain cancer, grandmother's bone cancer, or mother's lung cancer. They were asking for guidance on research. It was heartbreaking to experience this while she worked in the lab relentlessly to find a cure for cancer.
One late night, while Dr. Şahin was working in the lab as a post-doctoral fellow, she received a call from a friend whose mother was hospitalized for end-stage lung cancer at the research hospital where she was working. She visited her friend's mother every day after work until the day that she received a phone call from her friend that her mother passed away.
Dr. Şahin felt that something here was terribly wrong, something that didn't make sense at all; on her end, she was working on curing cancer while on the other end someone was dying from the disease.
Throughout her 20+ years career, Dr. Şahin has been a mentor for students at every level. During her studies as a cancer scientist, she served as a judge at a science fair at a middle school in Massachusetts. She gets constant emails and calls from similar students all over the world who need guidance and direction for careers in cancer science. She believes we need more outstanding cancer scientists, and we need to develop them today and at younger ages!
All these experiences pressured Dr. Şahin to do something, and to do it NOW! So she followed her true passion on 1) cancer research, 2) education, and 3) helping people to build a nonprofit organization that aims to 1) make cancer and cancer research understandable for everyone; 2) bridge the gap between cancer professionals and cancer patients; 3) provide cancer research scholarships for promising high school students worldwide, career guidance, and mentorship; and 4) conduct in-house innovative cancer research and directly translate it to the public.
She spent a year doing background research, reading law books, building websites, creating business plans, and talking with mentors, to found Cancer Education and Research Institute® (CERI), formerly Cancer Research Simplified, on strong and stable ground on January 30, 2013.
Dr. Şahin is tremendously proud of CERI's achievement over the years. It is a true honor and privilege for Dr. Şahin, her team and for CERI's supporters that CERI was recognized by the United Nations with the UNIATF Award 2019.
For her efforts in global health, Dr. Şahin was nominated by the International Association of Women for the Inspirational Influencer Award 2022.
Learn more about Dr. Şahin’s background.
Dr. Ayguen Sahin, MSc, PhD, CEO, Founder, and Cancer Lead of Cancer Education and Research Institute is accepting the UNIATF Award 2019 by the United Nations
at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City.
at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City.
Dr. Ayguen Sahin, MSc, PhD was nominated for the Inspirational Influencer Award 2022 by the International Association of Women for her efforts in Global Health.
