Bikus Urachus began with two riders in the fall of 2012: one who had recently recovered from Urachal Cancer, and the other who had participated in the event and was riding to support his friend. Here we are, on our 11th campaign, having raised $1.8 million to date and still going strong. The drive to survive a rare cancer and the passion to raise money and initiate research to fight rare cancer motivated a village. As we raise money for cancer research (for all types of cancers), bring visibility to rare cancers and initiate rare cancer research projects, we have become a family.

This team is like no other team in this event, and that’s because of the wonderful people that comprise it. The leadership runs deep, which is why we are still here and united in raising money to fight cancer. Our 11th campaign is dedicated to every member of this team.

Bikus Urachus emerged from cancer of the urachus. The urachus is a tube that sits behind the belly button. It is supposed to shrivel away after birth, but in very rare cases can become diseased. This is what happened to our team captain. Urachal cancer accounts for 0.2% of all bladder cancers.

In 2014, we launched a dedicated rare cancer research fund that has just been renamed the Bikus Urachus Rare Cancer Fund. In 2015, we launched the PanCanadian Urachal Cancer Study - or PUCS, the world’s first urachal tumour DNA sequencing project. Funded through our fund, PUCS will allow researchers to find commonalities among urachal tumours and other cancer tumours for which data is available, eventually enabling more targeted therapies for patients.

In 2018, we supported the JGH by purchasing a much-needed next generation DNA Sequencing machine for the molecular pathology lab. Thanks to this technology, the JGH has become a reference centre for treatments that require DNA sequencing to access targeted therapies. It has also been used to analyze biomarkers for hundreds of bladder cancer and lung cancer tumours.

Our objective is to fund more studies focused on rare cancers.

Please help us move the needle on rare cancer research with a donation.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Phil

To find out more about our initiatives and the Bikus Urachus team, go to www.UrachalCancer.com.