Hear candid conversations between people conquering cancer — patients, their family and friends, and doctors and researchers working to help us all.
As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a teenaged Yelena Y. Janjigian fled with her family from Azerbaijan to California. Little did she—or anyone else—know that when she first stepped off that airplane, she was taking the first of countless steps, ultimately leading her down a lifesaving path of discovery.
As a young refugee starting over in a new country—one where she didn’t even yet know the language—young Yelena faced no shortage of challenges. But she also found opportunity she believes might not have existed in her native country.
“As an Armenian individual growing up in Azerbaijan, going by my parents’ and my family’s experience, I don’t think I would have had an opportunity to be a physician there,” Dr. Janjigian says. “There was a clear limitation on who got to be a physician, and it’s a prestigious position anywhere in the world. As a relative minority, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. My parents certainly had the courage it took to leave and to come to a foreign country.”
That same brand of courage led Dr. Janjigian to her current work as a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A specialist in esophageal and stomach cancer, she presented the results of her gastric cancer clinical trial during the plenary session of this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. The presentation was the culmination of more than eight years of work involving nearly 1,000 patients and collaborators. Much of that work, she says, started when she received her first grant from Conquer Cancer, a Young Investigator Award. Receiving that funding, she recalls, was a career-defining moment.
In this episode of Your Stories, Dr. Janjigian speaks with host Dr. Mark Lewis about her journey from Soviet-born refugee to groundbreaking oncologist, along with her vision for a world where a cancer diagnosis isn’t nearly as frightening as it is today.
