Honoring National Cancer Survivors Month, Recognizing the AACR Scientist↔Survivor Program®’s Positive Impact

Note from the editor: In honor of National Cancer Survivor Month, we are also honoring the AACR Scientist.positive effects of the Survivor Program on survivors over the previous 25 years. & nbsp: The first publication of this article, written by Thomas Celona, was in Cancer Today, the AACR’s publication for cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones.

The lab and the clinic are frequently separated in cancer research, with researchers and patients appearing to live in different worlds.

PhD candidate Manju George is aware of this disconnect. The resident of Omaha, Nebraska, claims that prior to receiving her own rectal cancer diagnosis in 2017, she had never met anyone with cancer during her career as a biomedical researcher.

The perspectives are very different when you work nonstop in the lab and have never met a patient. George, one of the cancer survivors who participated in the 2023 Scientist, said,” We cannot forget that all the work that is done is for the patient’s benefit.Program for Survivors.

For twenty-five years, the ScientistThe Survivor Program® has given cancer patients a prominent place among the thousands of researchers at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research ( AACR ). The experience gives scientists access to an audience with the very people who could gain from their research while also enhancing survivors’ knowledge of cancer and influencing their patient advocacy.

The researcherThe AACR Annual Meeting 2023, which took place from April 14 to 19, featured the Survivor Program ®, also known as SSP by participants. Participants in the meeting included survivors who actively advocated for patients. They attended specialized lectures geared toward patient advocates and engaged in group discussions on hot-button issues in cancer treatment. They also presented posters about their advocacy work while standing next to scientists in the exhibit hall.

31 patient advocates from 16 states, one U.S. territory, and three other nations made up this year’s SSP class. Advocate mentors, former participants who came back to serve as peer guides, and scientists who contributed their research expertise all provided support for them.

SSP draws its inspiration from a rally held in Washington, D.C., in September 1998, where thousands of cancer survivors, researchers, and other people demanded increased federal funding for cancer research. The need to bring the two groups together is emphasized by Anna Barker, PhD, chief strategy officer of the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine in Los Angeles, who recalls seeing survivors lined up to speak with scientists at the event. Barker quickly came up with the concept for the project and presented it to Margaret Foti, CEO of AACR and PhD( hc ). At the 1999 AACR Annual Meeting, the first SSP class convened. The program’s 25th iteration this year was commemorated with a reception on April 15 to mark the occasion.

During the reception, Foti said,” It was obvious to Anna that a concerted effort from all sectors of the community would really be needed to defeat cancer.”

The patient advocacy movement started in the 1990s, according to Barker and Foti, and many researchers felt that advocates were getting involved where they didn’t belong when SSP first launched. According to Barker, who has served as the SSP’s chair since its inception,” it is becoming more and more obvious that we are mutually dependent and connected, and everyone wins the more connected we were.”

The program has demonstrated over the past 25 years to be” something that really nourishes the education of both sides — both scientists and our patient advocates— and really enriches in such an amazing way ,” according to Foti.

” This is not merely a meeting; it is also not an event.” Jerry Lee, PhD, chief science and innovation officer of the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, who has served as an SSP scientific mentor on several occasions, said that it really is a way of thinking about how to collaborate.

When Lee served as the Cancer Moonshot initiative’s deputy director for cancer research and technology in 2016, he reportedly brought his SSP experience with him. He taped a picture of his SSP coworkers to the wall when he set up his desk at the White House. He said,” I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget why we’re all here— it’s for the benefit of the patient.”

Many of this year’s SSP participants focused on the interaction between patients and researchers. Allison Rosen, a 10-year colorectal cancer survivor from Houston, said,” They’re listening to us, and that means the world.”

” Every tale is important. Each cancer is unique. Every encounter is unique. And she added,” The more advocates who can participate, the more we can support cancer researchers and work together to educate, advocate, and collaborate.”

Julie Chessell, a fellow SSP participant from St. Mary’s in Ontario, Canada, traveled the world to speak about the liver cancer in her son Brock, but she claimed she had never seen advocates given such attention. She remarked,” I don’t know anything like this.” ” I’ve attended a lot of cancer conferences, and the advocates don’t really mix in.”

The patient voice was being honored, according to Toronto resident Michelle Audoin, who was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2017. There is a sense of urgency and fostering community because” we can benefit from[ researchers’] experience, and they can understand our firsthand experience ,” she said.

Participants in the SSP program also developed friendships with their fellow advocates, with some claiming to have found a new family. Fred Hardy, a prostate cancer survivor from Detroit, said,” It’s enriching from the perspective of meeting other people with like interests.” You are aware that this is not the first time you have experienced it.

The class from this year left motivated to take what they had learned home with them. Gail Petersen Hock, a Phoenix-based cervical cancer survivor, said,” We serve as the liaison to the survivors in the community at large.” And this is the place to come and learn if survivors want to take an active role.

Rosen, who works at the American Cancer Society and also teaches her nearly 20,000 TikTok followers about cancer, said,” I love to learn, and I’m here to learning and take back the information to the communities that I work with on a regular basis as an advocate.”

She remarked,” It really is life changing.” ” You meet people you’d never met before, and you take part in activities that give you a sense of purpose.”