About STARS

How STARS Came to Be

 

Over the past decade, improvements in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment has enabled more patients to live long enough to become active advocates.  These advocates attended programs such as the RAN Advocate Institute and AACR Scientist↔Survivor Program®, but found little helpful information about the unique challenges facing the lung cancer community or the revolution happening in lung cancer care (such as biomarker testing, targeted therapies, and immune checkpoint inhibitors). 

 

The STARS Program (Supportive Training for Advocates on Research & Science) formed in 2019 to address this need. A collaboration composed of patient and professional lung cancer research advocates and lung cancer advocacy organizations designed STARS with the aims of helping patient advocates evolve into patient research advocates (PRAs), increasing the number of PRAs equipped to provide accurate scientific translation in their online or real-life groups for people living with lung cancer , and enabling more people to provide the patient perspective for lung cancer research and policy. 

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The IASLC

 

The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is a nonprofit scientific membership organization that recognizes the importance of patient research advocates within the research ecosystem. IASLC staffs the administrative team and interacts with sponsors to attract the donations that fund the program.

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Our Partners

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The STARS Program is grateful for the ongoing collaboration of nonprofit organizations focused on lung cancer or cancer advocacy. They help ensure our programs have access to experienced research advocates as well as the most current information on lung cancer care.

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