BINAYTARA FOUNDATION – We Exist to Minimize Cancer Disparities

Oncology Continuing Education to Improve Patient Outcomes

BTF offers multi-format continuing education to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others to promote evidence-based cancer care.

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Binaytara Foundation Cancer Center, Janakpurdham, Nepal

Providing cutting-edge, Evidence-based, compassionate cancer care to people of Nepal.

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15-years of advocating, educating, and innovating to improve cancer care

Our vision is to bring evidence-based cancer care to people living in every corner of the world!

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About Binaytara Foundation

Growing up in rural Nepal in the 1980s, co-founders Dr. Binay Shah and Tara Shah witnessed the human suffering caused by the lack of access to healthcare. During his residency training in Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Shah immediately recognized that inequities in healthcare existed not only in his native country Nepal, but also in one of the world’s wealthiest countries- in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens in New York City. A great admirer of Mother Teresa’s selfless care for the poor and vulnerable, Dr. Shah wanted to end the inequities in healthcare. He and his wife Tara established the Binaytara Foundation in October 2007 to improve health equity.

Our Values

Our Founder’s Vision

Co-Founders Dr. Binay and Tara Shah established the Binaytara Foundation based on their belief that every human being should have access to cutting-edge, evidence-based, and culturally appropriate health care.

Our vision is to make evidence-based cancer care accessible to everyone in the world! We look forward to collaborating with healthcare providers, healthcare institutions, governments, donors, and supporters to establish programs & services, develop human resources, and design innovative solutions to minimize cancer disparities.

Our Impact

Binaytara infographic – Timeline

Binaytara infographic -Nepal Hospital

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Our Team

Binay Shah, MD
Dr. Binay Shah is a hematologist oncologist and the co-founder of the Binaytara Foundation. He grew up in Nepal and came to the United States for residency training after completing medical school at the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Nepal. During his residency training in New York City, Dr. Shah and his wife Tara began working on their vision to improve access to healthcare in the United States and globally. After Dr. Shah's internal medicine residency training, the Shahs moved to Chicago for his fellowship training in Hematology-Oncology. They registered the Binaytara Foundation (BTF) as a public charity in Illinois in October 2007 to improve health equity and minimize disparities. As a community hematologist/oncologist who has practiced in various settings across the country, Dr. Shah is aware of cancer care disparities that usually arise when the latest updates are not easily accessible to oncology clinicians. Therefore, BTF started annual hematology and oncology conferences in 2012. Today, BTF is a leading hematology and oncology medical education provider in the United States. Under Dr. Shah's leadership, Binaytara Foundation has established itself as the leader in promoting equitable access to cancer care through education, advocacy, and innovation.
Binaytara Foundation - President
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Tara Shah, RN

Binaytara Foundation - Executive Director
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Timothy Erickson, MD
Dr. Erickson earned his M.D. from The University of Health Sciences / Chicago Medical School. He completed an emergency medicine residency training at the University of Illinois and his medical toxicology fellowship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, IL. Dr. Erickson is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, American College of Medical Toxicology, American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, and the National Geographic Explorers Club. Previously, Dr. Erickson served as the Director for the UIC Center for Global Health and Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Toxicology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Erickson also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Graduate Medical Education, and Continuing Medical Education at the UIC College of Medicine. He was an acting and interim Head in the Department of Emergency Medicine and has held other multifaceted appointments ranging from EM Residency Program Director to Chief of Medical Toxicology. Timothy B. Erickson, MD is currently an emergency medicine physician at Mass General Brigham in Boston, MA where he serves as the Division Chief of Medical Toxicology in the Department of Emergency Medicine and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Erickson is also a core faculty member at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Cambridge, MA with expertise in environmental toxicology, crisis in climate change, wastewater-based epidemiology, chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear/explosive (CBRNE) threats, wilderness medicine, and emergency oncology. He has active humanitarian health projects in Nepal, Bhutan and India as well as in conflict regions of Syria and Ukraine.
Brigham And Women's Hospital
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David Aboulafia, MD
Dr. David Aboulafia is a hematologist/oncologist at Virginia Mason Clinic where he has been on staff since 1990, and has served as the Section Head in the department of Hematology/Oncology. His clinical focus involves benign and malignant hematology and primary and subspecialty HIV care. He has published over 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals that have focused on the medical care of patients he sees in his clinical practice. He is a principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute-funded AIDS Malignancy Consortium and chair of the AMC outreach, education, recruitment, and retention committee. He is also a Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology at the University of Washington.
Since 1992, Dr. Aboulafia has been the Medical Director of Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle. Bailey-Boushay provides care to people with HIV disease, promoting their health, well-being, and functional independence. Its goal is to ensure that every person with HIV/AIDS in our community has equal access to positive outcomes. Bailey-Boushay emphasizes acceptance of all people, compassion, safety, and the dignity and autonomy of individuals. Dr. Aboulafia also serves on the University of Washington Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Committee, is Chair of the Benaroya Research Institute Scientific Review Committee, and is a member of the HIV Medical Association and the International Association of Physicians for AIDS Care.
Dr. Aboulafia became a BTF board member after taking a trip to Nepal in 2020 and seeing first-hand the work of the Foundation I was truly surprised and inspired by Dr. Shah and his wife Tara's vision to build a cancer center in Janakpur. Equity in cancer care and respect for all people is a guiding principles in all that they do. I came away from that trip knowing I wanted to help make an impact in a larger way on the lives of people with cancer and this was a way to do so. Although small, the BTF has already accomplished goals that I had previously thought were unattainable. Their unwavering but practical vision, their humanitarian goals, and their ethics really resonate with me and have helped inform my vision of what is possible in cancer care on a global stage.
Virginia Mason Medical Center
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Shaji Kumar, MD
Shaji K. Kumar, MD, is a Consultant in the Division of Hematology and Mark and Judy Mullins Professor of Hematological Malignancies at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He is the Chair of the Myeloma, Amyloidosis, and Dysproteinemia Disease Group at Mayo Clinic, Research Chair for the Division of Hematology, and Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Kumar received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. His postdoctoral training included a residency in Internal Medicine from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, followed by an Internal Medicine residency and a hematology/oncology fellowship at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. He then completed a Mayo Foundation Scholar at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Kumar’s research focuses on the development of novel drugs and drug combinations for the treatment of myeloma. He is the Principal Investigator of several phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials. He also focuses on the mechanisms of disease progression from precursor conditions and risk stratification of plasma cell disorders. His laboratory focuses on understanding the role of the bone marrow microenvironment in the development and progression of myeloma.Dr. Kumar serves as Co-Chair of the NCI Myeloma Steering Committee and as Chair of the NCCN Multiple Myeloma Guidelines Panel. He is the President-Elect of the International Society of Amyloidosis and the Treasurer of the International Myeloma Society. He is the Editor in Chief of The Hematologist. Dr. Kumar has been associated with Binaytara Foundation for over a decade, educating cancer care providers at BTF's CME accredited hematology oncology conferences in different parts of the country.
Mayo Clinic
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Siddhartha Yadav, MD

Dr. Siddhartha Yadav is an Assistant Professor of Oncology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and has authored more than 50 scientific articles and expert contents in high-impact journals. Dr. Yadav chairs the education committee of Binaytara Foundation and is actively involved in our educational activities as well as our global oncology programs.

He earned his medical degree from the Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal, and completed his Internal Medicine residency training at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan. He then became a Chief Resident there and eventually moved to Minnesota for his oncology training at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Yadav has received numerous awards including Mayo Brothers Distinguished Fellowship Award and William H. J. Summerskill Award from Mayo Clinic, Young Investigator Award from American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Outstanding Fellow Award from Minnesota Society of Clinical Oncology, Merit Award from ASCO, Scholar-in-Training Award from American Association for Cancer Research and Clegg Scholarship from the British Medical Journal. Dr. Yadav has also received a research grant from the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO. His research and clinical interests lie in breast and gynecological cancers.

Mayo Clinic
BTF Education Academy Co-Chair Read More Read More
Aparna Parikh
Dr. Aparna Parikh is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Parikh specializes in gastro-intestinal cancers. She is very passionate about improving access to cancer care in low-income countries.
Dana Farber/Mass General
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