American Association of Indian Scientists in cancer Research (AAISCR, Inc.) is a non-political and nonprofit organization established on April 11, 1994, and later registered and incorporated in the state of Massachusetts on April 1997. It was formed to promote communication among Indian Scientists working in cancer research specialty areas. I remember it was at the AACR meeting in San Francisco back in 1994 when I was discussing with some of my colleagues about the need to establish an organization of Indian scientists in Cancer research. This prompted me to invite Indian scientists to a dinner meeting in an Indian restaurant on April 11, 1994. I recall only 17 scientists attended that meeting where I explained the goals and we unanimously agreed to form an organization. Drs. Ram Prakash Agarwal and Krishna C. Agrawal came up with the name "AAISCR". Then on, it was a combination of vision, dedication, and hard work that shaped AAISCR over the years. We started this organization with 17 scientists and now we have several hundred Scientists across the nation as members sharing similar interests, which in my mind is impressive.

I would like to thank the founding members late Drs. Late Krishna C. Agrawal (Tulane University, LA), late Shankar Nayak (Hoag Cancer Center, CA), Ram Prakash Agarwal (University of Florida, Miami, FL), Kapil Mehta (UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX) and H. N. Jayaram (Indiana University, IN) who helped me through its development from the inception to a strong organization as it is today. The first Board of Directors was formed that consisted of Dr. Aniruddha Ganguly, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; late Dr. Krishna Agrawal, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Dr. Ram Prakash Agarwal, University of Miami School of Medicine, FL; late Dr. Shankar Nayak, Hoag Cancer Center, Newport Beach, CA; late Dr. Satyabrata Nandi, University of California, Berkeley, CA; late Dr. Bandaru Reddy, American Health Foundation, Valhalla, NY; late Dr. H. N. Jayaram, Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN; late Dr. Mansukh Wani, Research Triangle Institute, Durham, NC; Dr. Saraswati Sukumar, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; Dr. T.J. Thomas, R. W. Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ; and Dr. D. S. R. Sarma, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. I want to thank the board members of AAISCR who made it successful; this has been possible due to generous support and participation from the AAISCR community.

This is your organization and you should actively participate to move it forward and be proud of being a member. We have a wealth of information and resources available that we should share and utilize to help each other and provide infra structural support to the cancer research community. We formed this organization to specifically promote peer support, recognize scientific excellence, improve scientific interactions and productivity by collaborative research, exchange ideas and technologies, share scientific information and experience, and help translate scientific discoveries into clinical applications by involving biomedical business organizations.

We must work together to integrate our goals. We have been recognizing talented young scientists by awarding them at the Annual meetings based on the quality and importance of their research work presented at the AACR meeting. This is an effort to encourage particularly the young scientists to involve in high quality research. We have been honoring distinguished scientists, NIH scientist administrators and biomedical company owners for outstanding contributions.

We have launched Newsletters (N-Link) and developed website (http://aaiscr.org) to communicate within and outside AAISCR community and to share information on various AAISCR activities. However, much remains to be done. In addition to helping each other, we must work hard to integrate our goals on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment for cancer and ultimately contribute to patient care. We have to work together to fight this disease and I am confident that AAISCR can play a role in this process. We urge you to join AAISCR as a member/life member and contribute your time and talent to make it a better organization. We welcome biomedical companies to join AAISCR and use our website for mutual interests.

As a member of the AAISCR it is your responsibility to contribute your knowledge to educate lay audience in your local community on cancer facts and increase awareness of the educational programs that are available to them at local hospitals/cancer centers to learn more about the disease and treatment options that are available. We also need to focus our attention to Indian Cancer Centers to open communication with AAISCR. While visiting India, we should be able to help train new generation of students and researchers by offering seminars and workshops at different Universities/Cancer Centers, and engaging them into interactive sessions focusing on the importance of self-discipline, professionalism, ethics, and high-quality research on career development. These can only help promote scientific advancements.

I personally thank you for your support to AAISCR and wish you the very best.

With my personal thanks and best regards,

Aniruddha Ganguly, Ph.D.
Founder & Past President
AAISCR