2024/12/01 by Bettina Ryll · 1 voice
Medicine · #Sex and Gender in Healthcare
paper · pdf · doi:10.1242/dmm.052202
openalex publication_date 2024/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/06
Melanoma is a type of cancer that originates from the melaninproducing cells of the body, called melanocytes.Since 2011, 11 new therapies that are greatly improving survival rates have been approved for advanced melanoma.Despite these promising advances, the number of new invasive melanoma cases diagnosed annually increased by 27% during the past decade (2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023).In 2024, more than 100,000 people are expected to have been diagnosed with melanoma in the USA alonewith 8000 deaths, indicating that more needs to be done to help patients with this cancer.Bettina Ryll is a research scientist and physician by training who has dedicated more than a decade to patient advocacy as the founder of the Melanoma Patient Network Europe (MPNE; Box 1).She was the first non-oncologist to chair the European Society for Molecular Oncology's (ESMO) Patient Advocates Working Group and a member of the first EU Cancer Mission Board.She works as a strategist at the Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research (SIR), where she focuses on precision medicine implementation.In this vein, she also acts as a strategist for Vision Zero Cancer to drive progress in personalized medicine and has been involved in numerous European initiatives on precision medicine implementation.Here, she discusses her personal experience and motivation in patient advocacy, and her strategies to expand the impact of her work to benefit all people with melanoma.Could you tell us about your careerhaving trained as both a clinician and basic researcherand how this benefits your advocacy work?