Dave Bjork, patient advocate and research evangelist.

Dave Bjork is a patient advocate and research evangelist with more than 20 years of progressive experience in nonprofit advocacy, community-building and fundraising leadership roles. He is currently a consultant on the Patient Driven Design team at Medidata Solutions advising on bringing the patient voice to the clinical trial experience. Dave is also host of the Research Evangelist podcast and blog where he interviews people in life sciences that are doing brilliant work in cancer research. Previously Dave served 4 years as Director of Development and Community Relations at FRAXA Research Foundation where he was responsible for building relationships between the Fragile X community and biopharma companies to help advance treatment development in Fragile X syndrome. Before FRAXA Dave spent 4 years as Vice President of Development for National Foundation for Cancer Research where he was responsible for all fundraising and advocacy efforts. A lung cancer survivor, Bjork has made it his life mission to connect patients, biopharma companies, academic institutions and other key influencers to forge strong partnerships to focus on research. He also advocates for and builds bridges between patient groups and the biopharma industry. Bjork earned a BS in Economics and Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.