Gergana Kysosvska-Peshtenska

I am Gergana and I am Bulgarian living in this beautiful country with my husband and my 4-year old daughter Kalina. I am really a lucky person having a wonderful family and interesting job. I obtained my bachelor degree in Molecular Biology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria. From 2014 to 2018 I was a consultant in design, conduction and management of patient support programmes for oncological diseases. I have also worked in design and conduction on several research and validation projects for identifying diagnostic biomarkers in oncology and infectious disease. Since 2018 I am a Head of Personalized Medicine division in Institute for Medical Research (IMR) – the first private institute for medical scientific research in Bulgaria, providing solutions for medicine, biotechnology and business, based on innovative models and technologies. I have been a volunteer in Bulgarian Association for Personalized Medicine for the last 6 years, and I am currently a coordinator in the Association.

My perfect world was almost destroyed in 2018, when out of nowhere my husband was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and we entered this battle together. After my personal encounter with the problems and issues of patients’ access and active involvement in healthcare processes and procedure in Bulgaria, I am currently devoted to “patient advocacy” as an instrument to put the patient in the center of healthcare system. Fortunately, 2 years later and two stem cell transplants more, we are still together and we are waiting for the happy end of this nightmare. I believe that each patient matters, and not only the patient, but his entire family, and I am really eager to increase patient involvement in each stage of the healthcare process.

My interests are in the field of personalized medicine, clinical genetics and genomics, biomarkers and innovation therapies in oncology and onco-hematology and patient advocacy.