For the last four and a half years, Ann has become an experienced patient advocate, especially in the areas of clinical trial assistance for colorectal cancer patients (including knowledge of relevant biomarkers such as MSI, BRAF, NRAS and KRAS).  Ann shares information on (almost) a daily basis with a number of online colorectal cancer groups – from small specific biomarker driven groups (BRAF CRC, KRAS mutated NRAS group) to very large online communities e.g. Stage 4 Colorectal Cancer Facebook group with 4,668 members and the Immunotherapy Support group with 3660 patient/family members.

Goals as a Research Advocate

• To have a science-based support/research group for immunotherapy patients (e.g MSI patients or lung patients with good biomarkers. This would have great resources (e.g. from SITC, Cancer Research Institute) but also updates on clinical trials that are working on improvements to immunotherapy trials e.g. moving promising treatments into first line. Getting approval of checkpoint inhibitors is just the beginning of this era in immunotherapy. But many give up on immunotherapy if a checkpoint inhibitor stops working.
• To help patients find out ways that use of liquid biopsies can give them more options and time – e.g. to rechallenge a targeted treatment, to monitor biomarkers of response to immunotherapy OR non-response to a treatment like TAS-102 or Regorafenib.
• To be a trusted voice for important news that could be impactful and helpful for patients.