Deborah James @bowelbabe to Guest Curate Cheltenham Science Festival 2022

We are delighted to announce Deborah James @bowelbabe as the first of our 2022?Cheltenham Science Festival ?Guest Curators.

Deborah is author of the weekly column?Things Cancer Made Me Say?and host of the award-winning podcast?You, Me & the Big C.?She'll be asking the questions everyone wants the answers to and getting people talking about cancer in a way that is hopeful, yet realistic. Deborah commented:

“One in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime, yet in the last 40 years, the survival rate has doubled* . As someone who is living with cancer, I feel I’m in a good position to steer the conversation between researcher and patient. My hope comes from science and research. I want to know that there is still hope even when things feel lost. And sometimes navigating the latest cancer treatments can be overwhelming, so I want to educate people that each person’s experience of cancer is as unique as they are. In cancer treatment one size doesn’t fit all. People need to understand where we are with personalisation of medicine.”

Deborah James was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer at the age of 35 and her life with her young children and husband was thrown upside down. Rather than disappear into a cancer cave, she started documenting her life with cancer as 'bowel babe' to debunk the myth that young women don't get bowel cancer, which in turn became the award winning and popular weekly column for the Sun online,?Things Cancer Made Me Say.?She campaigns and fundraises alongside major UK cancer charities, is Patron of Bowel Cancer UK, and has leveraged her social media platform work to raise over ￡500k for various cancer causes. She writes and presents the award-winning, chart-topping podcast?You, Me & the Big C?for BBC's Radio 5 Live,?has a built up a strong following on Instagram as @bowelbabe, and has recently been awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her work in opening up the Cancer conversation on a national platform. Her bestselling book?F*** You Cancer,?a self-help guide to living your best life WITH cancer, published by Penguin, is out now and her next book,?How to Live When You Could Be Dead,?will be out later this year.

#WorldCancerDay

* https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/survival