Susan Wysoki

PATIENT ADVOCATE ACTION COLLECTIVE MEMBER

Susan has been an indomitable patient advocate and tireless researcher since the moment her 17-year-old daughter Jessica was diagnosed with Colorectal Cancer (CRC) in December 2016. 

After Jessica’s death in 2018, Susan dedicated herself to advocacy and awareness of CRC, looking at the environmental and epigenetic factors that may have influenced Jessica’s early-onset cancer —From early exposures that increase the body burden of chemicals, to lesser known factors that may be quietly increasing the risks and incidence of inflammatory diseases affecting the microbiome.

After the positive response to her work, as the only non-medical professional invited to address international researchers and clinicians at the Early-Onset CRC conference, she was asked to present her research to the National Institutes of Environmental Studies, a division of NIH.

Susan spent most of her professional career in marketing and public relations as a VP of the global communications firm Hill and Knowlton, where she advised CEO’s, Fortune 500 companies and foreign governments. In the healthcare arena her clients included Bayer, SmithKline Beecham, Johnson & Johnson, DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), and Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Susan led global multi-disciplinary teams, developed and executed national and international media and marketing campaigns, corporate communications and product launches.

Susan coordinated the media launch of the iconic U.S. Postal Service Breast Cancer Awareness stamp which has raised more than 87 million dollars since its inception. And on behalf of Bayer, she directed the original campaign to educate the public about the connection between aspirin and reducing the risk of both first and second heart attacks, something that is now widely accepted.

Susan has advised dignitaries and foreign governments including Botswana, Chile, China, Finland, Italy, Israel, Spain, Macedonia, and Indonesia on issues relating to tourism, biomedical research, technology transfer, trade policy and foreign direct investment.

She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College in Political Science and International Affairs and a Certificát from L’Université D’Aix en Provence Aix, France.

She started her career in publishing with Vogue & Vanity Fair, was a script writer for CNN and authored the book Winks from Heaven. Her work has been published in More, Glamour, Self, Pregnancy, Southern Living, Fitness, & Psychology Today.