Seun Adebiyi
About Seun Adebiyi
Seun Adebiyi is a graduate of the Yale Law School, an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, and a 2014 Winter Olympic contender. Previously, Seun competed internationally as a member of the Nigerian swim team, surpassing the Nigerian record in the 200 meter freestyle and just missing the 2004 Olympics by one tenth of a second. His current sport, skeleton, is an 80 mph headfirst plunge down a mile-long ice chute. In June 2009, however, Seun's quest to become the first Winter Olympian from Nigeria was derailed by two rare and aggressive blood cancers, stem cell leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma. His survival hinged upon a stem cell transplant. Yet, due to his African heritage and the scarcity of black donors, his odds of finding a matching donor were less than 17%. Seun became a public advocate for cancer patients and set twin goals of recruiting 10,000 donors and building a donor registry in Nigeria, where one quarter of the African population resides. Seun appeared on several national and international media outlets and even participated in a documentary to raise awareness about the urgent need for stem cell donors, as a result of which several thousand people around the world registered. Seun received a stem cell transplant in February 2010 and is currently in remission. He now seeks to use the Olympic platform to challenge the stigma of cancer in Africa, as well as to promote education and awareness about stem cell donation among African and African-American communities.
Role(s) / Profession(s)
- Advocate, Community Organizer
Organization
- Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network - YP-CDN
Work Location(s)
- Nigeria
Language(s)
Seun's Communities
Recent Contributions
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Seun Adebiyi started a discussion "Call for Volunteers: HLA population analysis in Kenya and Ghana". in the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network community.
The Bone Marrow Registry in Nigeria, with help from the National Marrow Donor Program, is organizing a pilot HLA population frequency analysis in sub-regions of Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. This is a feasibility study for a subsequent HLA population analysis on a larger scale. The pilot study will take HLA ...
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Seun Adebiyi started a discussion "Problems of Creating Bone Marrow Donor Registries in Emerging Economies". in the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network community.
Dear all, I want to share with you an article recently published in The BMJ by a colleague, Dr. Sushrut Jangi at Harvard Medical School. http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f2976 It's a fantastic case study for anyone seeking to enhance healthcare infrastructure in developing countries. Sushrut, job well done and congrats on the publication!
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Seun Adebiyi replied to "New paper on capacity and systems to address NCDs in low- and middle-income countries" in the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network community.
Excellent paper! Thanks for sharing. It gives a very clear, high-level roadmap for addressing NCDs in LMICs. A question came to mind however: Given the complex relationships between NCDs and competing health priorities (sanitation, nutrition, etc), as well as the plethora of diseases included under the umbrella term "NCD", how ...
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Seun Adebiyi replied to "CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Grant Writing and Peer Review Workshop" in the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network community.
Thanks very much for this Hester but I don't see a link below?
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Seun Adebiyi replied to "Feb 14th NIH Event in Bethesda, Maryland--Building a Cancer Program in Sub-Saharan Africa: The AMPATH-Oncology Model" in the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network community.
Thanks for sharing Gloria! The timing is very appropriate. I just returned from Nigeria to celebrate World Cancer Day with several local cancer-oriented NGOs. We also had some NGOs fly in from Kenya and the Netherlands for the meetings. The common theme of the meetings was "collaboration." How do institutions ...
Recent Recommendations
- None at this time.