Medical students bike across country to benefit leukemia research

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.

That’s the easy part.

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.