The Yvonne Awards 2026 brought together the global oncology community in Chicago to recognize physicians, researchers, advocates, mentors, and innovators whose work continues to shape cancer care across regions, disciplines, and generations.
Held during the OncoDaily Party 2026 at Park West, Chicago, the ceremony celebrated excellence across several areas of oncology, including global oncology, community oncology, breakthrough research, pediatric oncology, humanitarian work, leadership, mentorship, artificial intelligence, and voices challenging the status quo. The Yvonne Awards, symbolized by the strength and longevity of the yew tree, honor exceptional achievements in oncology and recognize individuals advancing cancer care through science, service, leadership, and innovation. Natera served as the exclusive partner of the Yvonne Awards Ceremony and OncoDaily Reception.
A Global Celebration Of Oncology Excellence
This year’s recipients represented a wide spectrum of contributions to oncology. From improving cancer care access and strengthening community-based oncology to advancing research, mentoring the next generation, and bringing new technologies into clinical practice, the 2026 honorees reflected the diversity and depth of today’s oncology field.
The awards recognized both established leaders and rising voices whose work carries impact beyond institutions and borders. Each category highlighted a different part of the cancer care ecosystem, showing that progress in oncology depends not only on scientific discovery but also on compassion, equity, education, collaboration, and courage.
Honoring The 2026 Yvonne Award Recipients
- Global Oncology: Syed Nabeel Zafar
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Eduardo Cazap
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Charles Balch
- Humanitarian Award: Mohammad I. M. Hojouj
- Community Oncology: Hannatu Ayuba Usman
- Leadership: Herbert Loong
- Voice of Oncology: Amol Akhade
- Mentorship: Adrienne Waks
- Community Oncology: Joanna Metzner-Sadurski
- Pediatric Oncology: Emmanuella-Faith Amoako
- Mentorship: Samvel Bardakhchyan
- AI in Oncology Named by ZS: Caroline Chung
- Breakthrough Research: Hasmukh Jain
- Challenging the Status Quo: Nickhill Bhakta
- Challenging the Status Quo: Ana Velazquez-Manana
- AI in Oncology Named by ZS: Abhishek D. Garg
Recognizing The Many Faces Of Progress In Cancer Care
The 2026 Yvonne Awards highlighted how oncology progress is built through many forms of leadership. Research changes standards of care. Mentorship shapes future specialists. Community oncology brings care closer to patients. Global oncology addresses disparities across regions. Humanitarian work protects dignity in difficult settings. Artificial intelligence introduces new tools for diagnosis, treatment, and decision-making.
Together, the 2026 recipients reflect a central message: the future of oncology depends on people who combine scientific excellence with service, vision, and responsibility.
A Night Dedicated To Impact
The Yvonne Awards Ceremony was more than a recognition event. It was a gathering of the oncology community around shared values: resilience, innovation, equity, and commitment to patients. By honoring individuals across different fields and regions, OncoDaily continued its mission to spotlight the people and ideas moving cancer care forward.
The 2026 Yvonne Award recipients now join a growing community of oncology leaders recognized for their contributions to cancer care, research, education, advocacy, and global collaboration. Their work reflects the spirit of the Yvonne Awards and the broader mission of advancing oncology for patients everywhere.
“This award may bear my name, but it belongs to every child who taught us what courage looks like, every parent who refused to give up, every nurse who stayed late, every colleague who believed children in Africa deserve the same chance at survival as children anywhere else, to mentors who have held my hands, To my family and friends that pushed me beyond any boundaries!”
Wafik S. El-Deiry/ X
Truly honored to receive the Voice of Oncology Award from OncoDaily!
“What started as sharing thoughts on clinical trials, evidence, and everyday oncology practice has grown into conversations with colleagues across the world. If my posts have helped even a few oncologists think more critically or learn something new, that is reward enough.”
The OncoWisdom WhatsApp group and OncoWisdom Webinars were born from the same idea – that learning in oncology is best when it is shared. They have become wonderful platforms for discussion, debate, and connecting colleagues across institutions and countries.
Thank you to everyone who engages, disagrees, debates, teaches, and learns together.
Our Collective Voice Matters.”
‘OncoDaily is a family and you are part of the family’
“Extremely humbled and honored to receive this prestigious OncoDaily Yvonne Award for AI in Oncology by ZS on sidelines of ASCO26”
A big shout-out to my lab members and many collaborators at KU Leuven Research.
Thanks also to our funders!
“Tonight I was honored at the ASCO meeting with the Yvonne Lifetime Achievement Award from OncoDaily and its charismatic leader Gevorg Tamamyan .”
It was a double honor for me to share the stage with my colleague and dear friend, Eduardo Cazap, Past President of UICC and President of SLACOM, who also received the Yvonne Lifetime Achievement Award. During my acceptance speech, I recognized the critical importance of being surrounded by a great team who collectively contributed to the achievements and to my incredible family who supported me and motivated me through the years. I gave a shout out to my son Alan Balch, president and CEO of the Patient Advocate Foundation, and my grandson Andrew Balch, who came to celebrate with me.
“Great to be at OncoDaily party! Very proud by what this team achieved.”
Thank you so much, OncoDaily, for this incredible event and for this tremendous honor.
When I created Oncology101.org, I never imagined it would lead to a moment like this. I started it for my patients at SRH -to help make cancer treatment, medical terminology, and clinical trials more understandable and accessible, and to empower patients and their families to better navigate their cancer journey.
“To be recognized by OncoDaily with Yvonne Award 2026 for this work and for my contributions to the community is truly humbling. Words cannot fully capture how grateful I am. I also want to thank my colleagues, my mentors, and especially this award belongs to my patients who taught me a resilience, compassion, humility and purpose. Thank you so much””
Being here with my besties-my mentor, Jasmine Kamboj, who believed in me, and Ruiling Yuan, who has always supported me-makes this evening even more special.
And being surrounded by so many extraordinary people from around the world gives me tremendous hope. Or, as my colleagues would probably say, not just hope, but confidence in the future of oncology and in what we can accomplish together for our patients
I am deeply thankful for this award, for the friendships and mentorships that have shaped my journey, and most of all for the patients who inspire this work every single day.
“Joanna Metzner-Sadurski, Congratulations on this very well deserved Yvonne Award.”
I feel truly privileged to work alongside you every day. Your passion, leadership, compassion, and dedication to patients, education, and advocacy continue to inspire all of us.
Jasmine Kamboj, thank you for empowering and inspiring us all along the journey!
Tonight is the celebration time.
See you all tomorrow at the ASCO CoP Health Policy meeting.
“Great pleasure to co-present OncoDaily mentorship awards together with the amazing Julie Gralow congrats to well-deserved winners, great event and fun to discuss with fellows and colleagues!”
“Congratulations to UT MD Anderson alum Nabeel Zafar on winning the OncoDaily Yvonne Award for his excellent work in Global Oncology!”
“Cancer around the world is a growing burden, a tsunami. It really is a death sentence in many countries. Growing up, I saw that, and I ran away from cancer. Coming to America, I see how we can really make a difference. What I’m trying to do is train people, build bridges and capacity, and really level the playing field to have cancer outcomes equitable across the world.”
– shared Nabeel Zafar.
“I really do love this label, ‘challenging the status quo’. I know I probably can be a pain by pushing and pushing, but this is how we get stuff done.”
For too long, global oncology has had a pall of colonial and neocolonial assumptions that have limited our ability to move forward:
- ‘All children are diagnosed, it’s right there in the WHO/IARC data’;
- ‘The massive population level variations in epidemiology we see are probably just driven by genomic differences’;
- ‘It’s not cost-effective for them to treat children with cancer’
- ‘if there is no RCT evidence, you cannot make recommendations (implication: so don’t bother dealing with 90% of the world)’;
- ‘No one will share their data, don’t even bother with this hospital-based registry network’;
- ‘St. Jude doesn’t need to be in Africa, [institution X] already has ‘it’ under control’
and most recently,
- ‘I am 99% certain NGS diagnostics is not feasible in the third world, and you all will fail.’
Thank you, Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, for giving me the opportunity to be the ‘hurricane’ on our team, accepting my challenges and teaching me how to turn them into productive outcomes. Also to Gevorg Tamamyan for your friendship and the Oncodaily team and committee for this honor.
“An immense honor to be nominated for this award! It really recognises the work that my colleagues in Hong Kong, as well as internationally, are doing from the oncology community, and I am really looking forward to continuing to contribute to the global oncology community.”
This Yvonne Awards leadership award belongs to all my peers, friends, collaborators, mentors, patients, and caregivers who have helped shape our progress in oncology care globally.
First day at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference.
What a first day!
Despite the jet lag and already walking over 7km around the conference (and I know tomorrow will be even more), I’m feeling incredibly grateful and excited to be here, learning from so many people working to improve cancer care around the world.
One of my favourite moments has been reconnecting with friends from around the world and meeting new people who share the same goal: improving the lives of people affected by cancer.
I started the conference at the VOICES sessions, hearing the stories of patient advocates and how they turned their experience into purpose. Then, I was particularly inspired by Patricia Mae Garcia’s presentation on cancer care in immigrant populations and the importance of these conversations, especially now, for the future of equity, diversity, and inclusion in cancer care globally.
“I ended the day at the Yvonne Awards hosted by OncoDaily , which was truly inspiring and fun and yes, the celebration afterwards was pretty great too.”
Looking forward to the days ahead and all the conversations still to come.
If you’re at ASCO, I’d love to connect and chat about patient advocacy, AYA cancer care, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and global collaboration in oncology.
Pura Vida!
At the 2026 Yvonne Awards event at the Park West Concert Hall on Armitage Avenue in Chicago.
Breakthrough Award to Dr. Hasmukh Jain for CAR-T cell therapy in India for work at TATA Memorial Center. And great to see my colleague Dr. Greg Kalemkerian at the event.
“This is a really proud moment for all of us who were involved in this research. There are several clinicians, scientists, nursing staff, and my resident doctors who have helped us make this true. I think the biggest appreciation for us has been the fact that we have been able to treat almost 300 patients in our institute and facilitate the treatment of about 800 patients in the country. So it is very, very inspiring and important for us to continue this work. “
– shared Hasmukh Jain on receiving the Yvonne Award in the Breakthrough Research category.
“Thank you OncoDaily and the selections committee and nominators for this special recognition through this Yvonne Award for AI oncology. Humbled, energized and honored by this recognition.”
Thank you to the amazing team around me at UT MD Anderson, all my collaborators, the growing American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) AI Community of Practice, my husband and family for their unfailing support, and many others who are learning and journeying with me.
“Exciting news! We are super proud to announce yesterday at the Yvonne Awards OncoDaily party, the partnership between BG Lab and OncoDaily for the Cancer Groundshot Virtual Fellow. We also announced our first BG Lab-Oncodaily virtual fellow, Dr. Elen Baloyan from Armenia.
Also on stage, our first virtual fellow, Syeda Mina sponsored by Agenus Inc. Our special thanks to OncoDaily and Agenus Inc for sponsoring the fellows and particularly to Gevorg Tamamyan for his enthusiastic support and collaboration. This is how we dismantle the boundaries in global oncology training and mentorship.”
“Thank you, OncoDaily, for the Challenging the Status Quo Yvonne Award 2026. I’m humbled to even be nominated and energized for all the exciting challenges to come!”
“A phenomenal night at the 2026 OncoDaily Yvonne Awards.”
“The 2026 Yvonne Award in Mentorship goes to Drs. Samvel Bardakhchyan (accepted on his behalf) and Adrienne Waks (Dana Farber) presented by Julie Gralow and Petros Grivas.”
“This is incredibly meaningful, because to be recognised for mentorship is probably the thing that I hold most dear. Relationships with mentees make everything more fun, more interesting. I learn an incredible amount from mentees just like I hope I pass on knowledge to them.”
– Adrienne Waks on receiving the Yvonne Award in Mentorship.
I am deeply honoured and grateful to receive the Yvonne Award for Humanitarian Work 2026 from OncoDaily.
“While we celebrate the remarkable progress of science and medicine, this recognition reflects another reality of our profession – caring for patients under the most challenging and uncertain conditions.”
I accept this award with humility, on behalf of my colleagues and friends who continue to serve patients with courage, resilience, and compassion, especially those working in areas affected by conflict. Their dedication truly defines the spirit of this award.
My sincere thanks to the OncoDaily team for this meaningful recognition.
We will continue to stand, to serve, and to care.
Wafik S. El-Deiry/ X
Eduardo Cazap on receiving the Lifetime Achievement Yvonne Award:
“Please be proactive in expanding cancer care for people around the world.”
It was wonderful to attend the Yvonne Award Ceremony organized by OncoDaily and meet the co-founder of Oncodaily, Gevorg Tamamyan and many others at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) last evening.
The event was an inspiring celebration of excellence, innovation, and the remarkable contributions advancing cancer research and patient care.
Congratulations to all the award recipients and organizers. Looking forward to the exciting conversations and discoveries that continue to shape the future of oncology.
Amol Akhade, Samvel Bardakhchyan, Ana Velazquez-Manana, and Hannatu Ayuba Usman were unable to attend the ceremony in person, and their awards were accepted on their behalf. Ultimately, we celebrate all of these incredible leaders who remind us that when it comes to advancing global cancer care, our collective voice and dedication truly matter.
