Guiding Principles of LA Cancer Research Foundation

Lokanayagi Adikesavan (LA) Cancer Research Foundation (a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization) is established for a noble cause, in the fond memory of Ms. Lokanayagi Adikesavan. She was born in India on September 20, 1941. Ms. Lokanayagi served as Chairman, Literature, for some years in Government College for Women, Mayavaram, Tamil Nadu, India, in the 1960s, when college post-graduation of women was just uprising. This young lady was a simple but strong-willed woman in her days and always thought of the progress of women in her small life.

She lived as a non-pareil, dynamic, and multifaceted woman. She helped young girls to redesign themselves for personality development in the day-to-day changing modern world. In fact, Lokanayagi was a model for women in the 20th century — to program herself to be a good woman, good wife, good mother, and a good professional. She even portrayed herself as an iron lady, forbearing what has come to her fate, after she was told she had Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

At the age of 44, on April 4, 1986, the young lady passed away, leaving her small family who can only think of her but never see her anymore. The family was left to witness what her husband, Dr. Adikesavan (Retd. Head of Maths & Computer Applications, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy, India), reiterated: “Only when crisis occurs, we can know what life is.”

Such a heavy loss in their own family awakened the founder, an ardent admirer of her mother Lokanayagi, to institute a Cancer Research Foundation in her name, to keep at least her imprints alive. The founder recalls that Lokanayagi was such a loving mother who did not even wish her daughter to see her pitiable mental and physical condition at the cancer hospital while undergoing treatment, as she felt it would create an everlasting scar in the child’s mind.

Lokanayagi never shed tears anytime for the short stay coming to a close at a young age. In those two weeks, only once she mentioned, “I can’t fold my hands and pray my God before going to sleep, as my hands are paining after intravenous injections.” As a mother, she wished to have a grace period of only three more years, just to prepare her child to face life ahead, though she knew that she will become no more in a week.

Even to date, cancer is still a threat to human life and creates a pathetic situation for the patient who awaits miracles to happen if the treatment does not help to completely cure cancer. When the miracle does not click, it leaves the family to grieve forever with incomparable and irreparable loss.

Our Cancer Research Foundation is intended to encourage and aid the research community that strives hard to cure cancer and help families avoid such tragedies in the future.

The LA Cancer Research Foundation encourages and supports upcoming young researchers, with dynamism and concern for cancer research. It is designed to serve as a powerful source of support for dedicated scientists to contribute by devising curative methods for cancer. En route, it also aims at educating people at large about known carcinogenic agents to prevent cancer.

The earnest goal of LA Research Foundation is to fund cancer researchers to discover medicines that will help cancer patients to be able to buy medicines at an affordable price, through the discovery of pharmaceutical drugs (using bioinformatics applications) that can cure cancer, sans chance for recurrence. This is an ever-cherished dream to come true with global collaborations and support for the noble cause.