About the Annual Advocate Leadership Summit

For nearly 30 years, NBCC has been a leader in supplying the education, tools and training that empowers breast cancer survivors and other advocates to make their own informed decisions and to take leadership roles in clinical, scientific, policy and legislative decision-making that affects breast cancer research, healthcare and public policy.

NBCC’s Advocate Leadership Summit is an annual gathering of breast cancer advocates from across the country and around the world. Participants attend sessions on the latest scientific research, training in effective advocacy strategies and presentations by respected researchers in the field, grassroots leaders from around the country and prominent public policy experts. The Advocate Leadership Summit is the premier breast cancer advocacy event that attracts women and men from the U.S and other countries. Attendees include breast cancer survivors, caregivers, patient advocates and many others who are affected by breast cancer.

Explore, download, and share pictures from the 2023 Advocate Leadership Summit and Lobby Day.
Attendees can find workshop and plenary session recordings on the Webex Events app.
The 2024 Summit will be held May 4-6. Registration will open in fall 2023.
- Add a Summit save-the-date to your calendar.

2023 Advocate Leadership Summit and Lobby Day Recap

From May 6-8, NBCC hosted our annual Advocate Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.

In a series of workshops, advocates listened, learned, and questioned prominent breast cancer researchers about a range of important topics, including racial disparities in breast cancer, antibody-drug conjugates, the history of the treatment of breast cancer, the history of the FDA and Accelerated Approval, why researchers can cure cancer in mice but not humans, uninformative clinical trials, and the uses and limitations of circulating tumor DNA.

Political workshops supplemented advocates’ political toolkits with topics including how the Affordable Care Act affected access to health care, understanding your political power as a constituent, and NBCC advocacy for the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program.  

During the plenary sessions:

NBCC Board of Directors Alternate Pat Haugen and Drs. H. Kim Lyerly of Duke University and Judy Feder of Georgetown University provided a brief history of breast cancer treatment and health care access in the United States.

NBCC Board of Directors Member Judi Hirshfield-Bartek and Drs. Keith Knutson (Mayo Clinic), Cyrus Ghajar (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center), and Alana Welm (University of Utah) presented their annual progress update on NBCC’s Artemis Project. In addition to their research progress, NBCC is proud to announce the Artemis Project has secured a manufacturer for the breast cancer vaccine it developed, meaning we are one step closer to a Phase I/II clinical trial.

NBCC Board of Directors Alternate and Board of Trustees Member Beth Emery, ATI Advisory’s Anna Kaltenboeck, American University’s Dr. Lewis Grossman, and Yale University’s Dr. Reshma Ramachandran explored key issues with the FDA Accelerated Approval Program, paving the way for NBCC advocates to get involved in our new public policy priority of FDA reform.

Supermajority’s Jara Butler, Republican Women for Progress’s Jennifer Lim, Impact Research’s Molly Murphy, and NBCC Board of Directors Vice President Marylinn Minor discussed the political power of women voters and activated already-empowered advocates for a successful Lobby Day.

On May 9, advocates mobilized in a powerful Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, meeting with nearly 200 congressional offices to advocate for NBCC’s legislative priorities and secure lawmakers’ commitments to support the Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act, which currently has more than 130 bipartisan cosponsors in the House of Representatives. 