We are proud to inform you that our community of ‘Patient Advocate Heroes of Cancer’ grew with the valuable contributions belonging to Laura van ‘t Veer and Bob Weinberg. Therefore our Annual Congress on January 29, 30 and 31, created a platform to award Laura van ‘t Veer and Bob Weinberg with the Inspire2Live Patient Advocate Hero of Cancer Award.

This award is given to a clinician or researcher that has done important work that improves the quality of life of cancer patients and their loved ones. It’s our way of saying ‘Thank you very much for your contribution to patients’. The work of the heroes means that they have the patient in mind when doing their work and when living their mission.

Laura van ‘t Veer has done a lot of work in her I-Spy trial design. It is so important that patients are part of trials when there is still not enough knowledge about the drug response to treatments. I-Spy means that patients can easily step into another ‘arm’ of the breast cancer trial when there is no response in their initial arm and it appears that there might be a better response in another. Researchers and clinicians can learn a lot from this concept. More important is that patients benefit from it.

Bob Weinberg is well known for his work on the biology of cancer. His famous article about the hallmarks of cancer has helped a lot of other researchers in their work and has improved the quality of treatments. Working in the field of cancer research and treatments means that his book ‘The biology of cancer’ has been read and is on your bookshelf. ‘It starts with knowing what’s going on’. This was also the title of his lecture at our Annual Congress.

Inspire2Live is proud but even more grateful to have these two heroes in our community. We’re convinced that their work will continue to contribute to patients in the future and near future.

Peter Kapitein
CEO and Patient Advocate Inspire2Live

Nicole van Leeuwen
Office Management and logistics Inspire2Live