Patient Advocate and Caregiver Shares Advocacy Journey in KRAS Cancers

Dr. Joshua K. Sabari, a thoracic medical oncologist at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and editor-in-chief of CURE, sat down with Chris Conneran at the 2025 IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer to discuss advocacy in KRAS-mutant cancers.

Conneran, a patient advocate with KRAS Kickers and a caregiver to his wife with lung cancer, shared his journey from supporting her diagnosis to championing education, research and community resources for patients and families.

Transcript

Sabari: I'm Josh Sabari, a thoracic medical oncologist at NYU Langone Health, Perlmutter Cancer Center. I'm also the editor-in-chief of CURE, and Chris, it's a pleasure to meet and sit down with you. I know you're a part of KRAS Kickers, and you're a caregiver to your wife with this diagnosis. Tell me your story. How did you get to the place you are now, advocating for KRAS-mutant cancers?

Conneran: Well, let me tell you, it's a really stressful thing when your wife is diagnosed. She was diagnosed about eight years ago. All of a sudden, you find that your world has turned upside down. We were just becoming empty-nesters and found out that my wife has lung cancer. It changes everything. At first, you're going to do what any other good husband does; you want to fix things. Because us guys, we want to fix. That's just how we do it.

I couldn't fix this, so what did I do? I'm trying to support her, I'm researching it. I'm in IT, so I thought, “I've got to find out what's going on with this. What is this lung cancer stuff, what is this?” And everything looked really bad. I said, “I've got to make a difference.”

What did I do? When she was going through chemo, I ripped all the carpet out of our house, no kidding, because the doctor told us, “Dust is hard on them.” And I took those words to heart, because I had to do something. If you can imagine, my wife was not too happy about the fact that when she came home, the hardwood floors were there and the carpets were all ripped up, but we worked it out.

Then I started thinking. She talked me into going to a conference, and I said, “What is this conference about?” At first, we went to a big lung cancer conference, and they said, “Okay, all you EGFR people over here, all you ALK people over here.” I looked at her and said, “You must have this really rare cancer because there's nobody here like you.” There were like two or three other people there. Come to find out, after a second opinion, we found it was KRAS. And lo and behold, KRAS is in around 35% of all lung cancer. But at the time, we felt really left out because the doctor told us, “Oh, you don't have anything.” We got the testing, but come to find out, we didn't have anything that was actionable. As you learn, we're learning this knowledge, and we want to give back to the community and help people so they don't go through the things we went through.

[My wife] first formed [KRAS Kickers] as a Facebook group. But how did it fit me? I started meeting a lot of folks on the other side and saying, “I'm a support person.” I started getting together with other groups, and I thought, “There's a real need out here for people to get this knowledge.”

I went to one of the conferences, and I met one of the oncologists. I said, “Look, I just turned 60. I've got 30 years in IT. I'm not stupid. I figure things out. I have a math degree. What can I do to make a difference? What would you want me to do? How could I help out?” He goes, "I can't get biostatisticians to work on my clinical trials, we have to fight to get one to help out.” I said, “Okay, great, I'm going back to school.” I told my wife and my kids — all my kids had graduated from college, and they were like, "Dad's going back to school?" So, I went back to school.

Sabari: More productive than ripping up floors.

Conneran: So I went back to school. A little over a year ago, I got accepted into Chapel Hill.

Sabari: Wow, congrats.

Conneran: Chapel Hill is a wonderful school. I went ahead and started bioinformatics. I'm almost done with that. I'm already going for my doctorate. I just finished my dissertation. That's what I was telling you a little bit about, that clinical trial finder that we're working on. I've had an opportunity to work with several professors at different colleges, working on some of their projects already, and it's really exciting. The more I dig into it, the more I realize how important it is to get the data, like all the data you see on these reports. I've been working on doing a lot of that. There's a statistician behind the scenes doing that work, pulling this stuff out, and now I'm betting on doing one of my own. I feel like I'm 40 again. I went from 60 to 40 going back to school.

Josh: Not just the brawn, but also the brains. You're doing a lot of work in the KRAS space. I know you're helping folks with colorectal cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. As a caregiver of somebody with cancer, what would you tell somebody newly diagnosed — a family member, a wife, a husband, a child — who comes to you and says, “Hey, Chris, what do I do moving forward?” I know a lot of my patients tell me family members feel stuck. What would you recommend doing to move forward, maybe even including joining KRAS Kickers?

Chris: Whether it's KRAS Kickers or another group, get involved. Don't just get involved with one group; get involved with many. At first, I was afraid to go to one of the meetings. For example, we have patient and care partner groups. We have meetups where we get chances to meet with them, and we have people who come and just talk. We all get together, and it's so important. We've had care partners come in who are just at their wits' end, because it's really stressful for the whole family. When somebody gets diagnosed, everybody gets diagnosed.

I would say one of the things to do is to find a support group. There's an old saying. You get on an airplane, and the first thing they tell the moms and dads is that in the event of an emergency, put the mask on yourself first, before your kids, right? That's the same thing I would tell a care partner: you need to do the same thing. It's easy to get stressed and stay up all night looking at stuff. You need to put the mask on yourself first. You need to take care of yourself. Don't get overwhelmed and worn out so you can take care of somebody else, because we don't need two people in the hospital.

I also say that, at first, you might think it's a sprint, but it's a marathon. You're going to get lots of tests, you're going to need to meet with someone. And so many times in our group, one of the biggest values, I think, we provide is we tell them a little bit about what's going on and what they can expect. They want to know what to expect. It's this mystery. And a lot of times they're like, “Well, we had somebody who said, ‘Hey, I'm on vacation. I just got diagnosed. It's Friday. Should I fly home from Disney right away?’” We told them, “Look, it's a holiday weekend. You're at Disney. There's nothing better for you to do. Enjoy your family time, because nothing's going to happen between now and Monday or Tuesday. You're not going to get to see the doctor or any of that stuff. Enjoy your life a little bit.”

I think that's what I would tell people: don't overstress. Take care of yourself as a care partner first, so you can give love to your loved ones and also your family, because it impacts your kids. If you have little kids or older kids, we all went to a gathering together where we all met with a psychiatrist to just kind of help us work through some of their stresses. We didn't have mom there; I was there with the kids, and they had a chance to talk to a professional and say what was bothering them. And that open communication among family members is very important.

Sabari: Chris, thank you. You do amazing work with KRAS Kickers, and for everything that you do helping patients, families and caregivers. Keep on doing everything you're doing; we need more folks like you.
Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.