Living the Science

At the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) we often say science is personal, but for one of our trainees, that statement runs deeper than most.

Today, we are incredibly proud to celebrate Milan Heck’s first presentation at a scientific conference, delivered this past April at the Summit for Cancer Immunotherapy (Summit4CI), hosted by BioCanRx. It’s a remarkable milestone, not just in her academic journey, but in a much larger story of resilience, purpose, and community.

She is a researcher. And she is a cancer patient.

Her journey began as a high school student in Calgary, when she was diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma, a rare cancer that had already spread by the time of her first scan. Over the next decade, she would undergo ten surgeries, multiple rounds of radiation, and countless setbacks, each one threatening to interrupt not only her education, but her identity.

And yet, she kept going. She earned a biomedical sciences degree, conducted research in viral immunology, and is now pursuing her Master’s degree in Katie Cockburn’s lab at the GCI, studying keratinocyte responses to UV radiation.

Along the way, her patient experience began feeding directly into the science, through biobank samples, through her insight, and through a groundbreaking CAR T-cell therapy project based on her own tumor biology. “As the project unfolded and evolved, I found my identity as a patient and a researcher blending and blurring,” she said during her keynote address at Summit4CI.

Her story reminds us why community matters, because no one walks this path alone. Her voice is helping shape the future of immunotherapy. Her lived experience is helping science ask better questions. And her presence, here at the GCI, reminds us all of what it means to live the science.

At the GCI, we’re proud to be the kind of community where that complexity is not only acknowledged, but celebrated.

Congratulations again to our incredible trainee. Your voice matters. Your science matters. And your story is one we are honoured to share.