The AACR Scientist↔Survivor Program lets cancer advocates network with scientists driving cancer research

This year I was among the cancer patient advocates who applied for and were selected to participate in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Scientist↔Survivor Program (SSP) .  As part of the program, I attended the AACR 2016 Annual Meeting held April 16-20 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The program consisted of an orientation day, including an excellent Cancer 101 briefing by Dr. Carolyn Compton; SSP-only sessions in which advocates met with top researchers to discuss specific topics such as immunotherapy and FDA policies; presenting an original poster during an AACR poster session; a group project in which a scientific advisor and an experienced SSP mentor helped us explore a major aspect of cancer research; evening networking events; and, of course, attending the Annual Meeting with cancer researchers.

Posters created by advocates talked about a variety of subjects–cancer journeys, advocacy organization outreach, even personal research projects. My poster discussed the benefits of the Lung Cancer Social Media (#LCSM) community on Twitter–thanks to my fellow #LCSM Chat Core Members for their valuable suggestions and feedback.

I didn’t understand every presentation in the actual AACR meeting — in at least one presentation I didn’t understand ANYTHING (gene editing is very technical) — but I did come away with a better understanding of the scope of cancer research, some of the issues impeding progress, and a list of topics I wanted to explore further.

I loved listening to researchers explain cutting edge work that … READ MORE

This article was first published 24-Jun-2016 on my Cure Today blog