Presentation to share PIVOT, a KU patient-researcher advocacy initiative

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas faculty and scientific staff are invited to attend a presentation on “PIVOT — Patient and Investigator Voices Organizing Together: Engaging Community and Patient Research Partners.” The Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways is hosting the event in cooperation with The University of Kansas Cancer Center and the KU School of Pharmacy.

Hope Krebill, assistant director of community outreach and engagement at the KU Cancer Center, will talk about the PIVOT patient research advocacy program. The event will take place at 4 p.m. Jan. 24 at KU Innovation Park in the Phase III Building, 2033 Becker Drive. The presentation will be simulcast via Zoom. See more details about the presentation.

Krebill will be discussing “the value of patient engagement in the research process from bench to bedside.” PIVOT provides cancer survivors, co-survivors and researchers the opportunity to work together to design research that may lead to improved treatments and therapies. It is one of the few such cancer center patient research advocacy initiatives in the country.

“Patients become experts through their experience with living with their disease,” Krebill said. “Through PIVOT, we ask patient research advocates to share the collective patient voice to prioritize research topics, hone strategies and enhance study relevance and participant recruitment.”

“The PIVOT network covers all counties in Kansas, so it is a good way to reach people who are in more remote regions of our state. The network is made up of patients and former patients who are advocates for researchers at both KU and KUMC,” said Susan Lunte, Ralph N. Adams Distinguished Professor of Chemistry & Pharmaceutical Chemistry and director of the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways.

For more information on PIVOT, visit the cancer center website. The Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways is a National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) focused on the creation and implementation of enabling technologies for the investigation of the genetic, biochemical and physical origins of disease.