Chances are strong that at least one person you know and love (or even you) will have cancer at some point. Why should you care?  Because people are dying for better cancer treatments.

We still do not know how to cure most cancers.  Now the funding that has fueled so many new discoveries in recent years—like the targeted therapy I’m taking, which has kept my cancer in check for nearly 13 years—is being throttled. Training programs at universities are being defunded. Labs are closing. Scientists are leaving the US for countries where their research is valued. We’re losing years of painstaking research that cannot be replaced.

The 2025 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Barcelona, Spain, concluded on September 9, 2025. I was there as part of the admin team for the IASLC STARS Scholar Program (STARS = Supportive Training on Research and Science). It was wonderful to see the number of lung cancer patient research advocates actively participating in the scientific panels and presentations. It was also exciting to see my rare type of lung cancer have a plenary session presentation–ROS1+ cancer wasn’t even in the diagnostic guidelines when my lung cancer was first diagnosed in 2011.

Six years ago (2019) I also attended WCLC in Barcelona. It was the first-ever STARS program, and several of my friends in the lung cancer advocacy community were there; a few were even presenting. However, that’s a bittersweet memory. Of the thirteen patient/advocates in the WCLC 2019 pictures in this post, six are no longer with us, including Linnea Olson (one of the first lung cancer bloggers and a dear friend who encouraged me to become an advocate). I can’t think of WCLC in Barcelona without thinking of them. They all ran out of time before new treatments became available.

While it is encouraging to see lung cancer research continue to make strides over the past 15 years, people are still dying of the disease. Cuts in research funding at the National Cancer Institute and other organizations threaten to slow the pace of progress for all cancers This New York Times gift article titled “Trump is shutting down the war on cancer” (free to read) gives a more detailed description of the dire funding situation facing cancer research in the USA.

I don’t want to lose more friends to cancer. Please support efforts to restore funding for medical research in the federal budget. The life of someone you love may depend on it.