Every week I look for people who are doing the work — not for the spotlight, not for the applause, but because they can’t imagine not doing it. This week’s three advocates are exactly that kind of people. One of them just watched a decade and a half of faith in a single researcher’s lab pay off in the most concrete way possible. One of them walked into a congressman’s office as a college student and reframed the entire conversation around a disease that’s killing people her age at rates nobody seems to be talking about loudly enough. And one of them took colon cancer awareness to the streets, literally, meeting people where they live because that’s the only way health equity actually works. These are the people who keep me going. I hope they do the same for you.
Kyle Noble lost his dad to pancreatic cancer in 2014. Then two more family members to the same disease. That kind of loss would break most people — or at least make them look away. Kyle looked straight at it and started riding. This year he completed his 15th Pan-Mass Challenge, raising money for Dr. Brian Wolpin’s lab at Dana-Farber every single year, including the years when hope in pancreatic cancer research meant believing in something that hadn’t proven itself yet. He kept going anyway. And this week, it mattered: the FDA approved the first therapy targeting RAS, the mutation driving the vast majority of pancreatic cancers. The pivotal trial was led by Dr. Wolpin. It meaningfully extended survival for patients with metastatic disease. Not a cure, Kyle is clear about that, but a milestone. The first one of its kind for a disease that has taken so much from so many families. In his own words, he credited the thousands of researchers, clinicians, trial participants, and funders who kept going when nothing looked like it was changing. Kyle, you’re one of those people too. Don’t forget that.
Audrey Jetté is a college fellow at Elon University. She walked into a meeting with Georgia’s 7th District Representative Richard McCormick, MD, MBA, a physician-turned-congressman who had just joined the Congressional Colorectal Cancer Caucus, and she came prepared. She came with her mother, Kim Jetté, a stage 4 colorectal cancer survivor. She came with others connected through Fight Colorectal Cancer and Georgia gastroenterologists. And she came with a fact that should stop every person in that building cold: colorectal cancer is now the number one cancer killer for people under 50 in the United States, and yet it is the only top-five cancer killer without a dedicated research program in the CDMRP. That gap is a policy failure, and Audrey named it exactly like that. But the line that stuck with me most was this: cancer isn’t a bipartisan issue, it’s a non-partisan one. That framing matters. In a moment when everything feels like it’s being sorted into opposing teams, she walked in and reminded a congressman that this one doesn’t have to be. That’s real advocacy, not just showing up, but knowing what to say when you get there.
Sharon Rivera Sanchez leads with a number: roughly 1 in 4 colon cancer diagnoses happens in the emergency room, usually at an advanced stage. Read that again. One in four. That’s not a screening gap, that’s a system that isn’t reaching the people it’s supposed to reach. Sharon is a TNBC survivor, a clinical trial participant, and a colorectal cancer advocate, which means she knows firsthand what it means to navigate a disease from inside it. Through Trials of Color, she took that knowledge to Petersburg, Virginia, partnering with The Regional Stop the Violence Initiative and their Slingshots program to bring colon cancer awareness directly into the neighborhood — alongside health education and screenings through the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center van. No clinic to travel to. No appointment to schedule. Just information and access, brought to the people who need it most, in a place they already trust. That’s what health equity looks like when it’s actually working. Sharon showed up and made it real.
If any of these stories moved you, go follow these three humans. They’ve earned it.
And if you know someone doing work like this — a patient advocate, a community organizer, a researcher who’s also a caregiver, anyone fighting for change in the cancer and health space — nominate them for a future edition. You can reply to this post or message me. This newsletter exists because of people like you pointing me toward people like them.
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Thanks for the shout out 💪🏻💙