Creating an Advocacy Group at the Onset of a Global Pandemic: KRAS Kickers Founder Shares Her Story

When Terri Conneran discovered she had a KRAS biomarker that was causing her lung cancer, she wanted to join a group of fellow patients with the KRAS gene; instead, she ended up founding that group herself.
In the summer of 2016, when Conneran was having difficulty breathing she dismissed it as seasonal allergies. When it got worse, she was prescribed an inhaler by her doctor. When the symptoms persisted months later and she also began to experience chronic fatigue, she went to see the doctor again. The doctor found fluid in her lung and ordered a chest X-ray, where she discovered a tumor in her lung. Eventually, she was diagnosed with stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer at only 55 years old.

After undergoing three rounds of chemotherapy, she underwent a lobectomy (a surgical procedure where a part of the lung, known as a lobe, is removed) and was declared no evidence of disease in July 2017. Seeking support in navigating survivorship, she joined a group for lung cancer survivors in