OUR Cancer Mission

Two weeks ago, I accepted to join the Horizon Europe Mission Board for Cancer.

The Mission Boards- there are 5 of them, each one addressing a different and important challenge for our society- are a new approach chosen by the European Commission to address 2 important criticisms on the former Horizon program:

1. Unclear impact
2. Citizen don't understand the value of research and innovation

Missions are supposed to be larger than a mere funding program- they are there to solve a problem of our European society.

My point is- if you look at the list of mission topics, the only possible conclusion is 1. they ALL matter and 2. they are interlinked.

• Adaptation to climate change including societal transformation;
• Cancer;
• Healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters;
• Climate-neutral and smart cities;
• Soil health and food.

However and it's no secret what drives me personally. Cancer- Melanoma to be precisely- killed my husband in less than a year, a few days after he turned 37. I was 35 at the time- and our 2 daughters 4 and 6. Since I started in advocacy, I am surrounded by an amazing, inspirational group of people who humble me in their energy and drive. Many of them have become friends. Some of them have become close to my family. Nearly all of them are either directly or indirectly threatened by cancer. Some of them have Melanoma, most have other cancers- neither suffering nor friendship go by histology.
So since the day my husband was diagnosed with Melanoma- 8th March 2011, you might forget your wedding day but not days like that- cancer has been a daily part of my and my daughters' reality. Waiting for scan results, looking for clinical trials, scanning scientific literature for experimental treatment options, arguing for appropriate pain management, the joy when a healthy child is born after cancer, the despair when we light another candle on our terrace for someone we care about or another one of us we have lost.

Before ending up in patient advocacy- surely no one grows up dreaming of doing THIS (I wanted to be a paediatric surgeon!!)- I studied medicine in Germany and France and did a PhD in Biomedical Science in London and then worked as researcher in Evolutionary Biology in Sweden- so I have a very specific perspective: my personal one is predominantly Melanoma, my background is medicine and research and I do have opinions on that (I once got told by a boyfriend I was 'opinionated' and it wasn't meant as a compliment!!!!!) but in the end, it's just a tiny piece of the puzzle. Cancer is large, I am sure there are many families like my own who suffer from the experience of cancer and the only thing I can grasp is some degree of suffering- but not the details, because in the end, every cancer is different.

Please- independent of how this Mission Project goes- there are so many of us whose lives are affected by cancer. Cancers differ, the impact on people's lives differ, but there is suffering wherever we look and if we are serious about reducing cancer's grip on our lives, we need to address ALL OF IT, not just our personal favourite piece of the puzzle.
So please, tell me what matters to YOU, what matters to people with YOUR condition. If there was one thing I learned over the last years- I thought I knew about cancer, I had learned at university about it, I passed with top grades. When it hit my own family, I realised that I just HAD NO IDEA and that medical facts are one thing- but that the IMPACT on lives was something I had never learned about.

This Cancer mission is about IMPACT and it is about WHAT MATTERS TO PEOPLE . We are the people who know what cancer does to us and the people we love- if we don't care, if we don't tell- no one will know. Our insight also comes with a responsibility- there is no one apart from us with our specific insights. We are the ones who can tell what patients really need- for the better of the current but also the future patient generation.

So- just to say- this is OUR CANCER MISSION. 

p.s. there are many cancers, many experiences and many opinions. If we want to learn from all, we have to put them into a format that works and nope, sending some email won't work- AND THANK YOU for all our IT-smart cancer colleagues for helping us with solutions and trainings that work for all