Global Colorectal Cancer Congress

Dr Muchengeti is the Head of Department of the South African National Cancer Registry (NCR), at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS). She also leads the IARC Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (IARC-GICR) Centre of Expertise in Johannesburg within the African Cancer Registry Network. She is a cancer epidemiologist with over 14 years of experience in cancer surveillance and epidemiological research, focusing on HIV-associated cancers, cervical cancer, and population-based cancer registration in African populations. She is a co-Principal Investigator of the South African HIV Cancer Match (SAM) Study and the South African Cervical Cancer Screening (SACCS) cohort. Dr Muchengeti is a Research Associate at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA), Stellenbosch University. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and serves on several national and international advisory committees, including being the Chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Cancer Prevention and Control.

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Bimal Patel is a colorectal cancer patient advocate and thirteen-year survivor of Stage IIIC rectal cancer who has lived with a permanent colostomy since 2013. Born in Nairobi, he returns to his birthplace for this Congress — a city that has twice marked a turning point in his life, first as the place where he rebuilt his strength in the months after chemotherapy ended in 2014, and now as the place where he brings a patient's perspective to the global colorectal cancer community.

Diagnosed in March 2013 with an approximately twenty-five percent risk of mortality and a twenty-seven percent risk of recurrence. He was treated at the University of Chicago Medicine through concurrent chemoradiation, robotic surgery, and six cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy completed in February 2014, and was discharged from five-year surveillance in November 2018 with no evidence of disease. In the years since, he has developed practical expertise in the dimensions of survivorship that clinical pathways rarely address: daily stoma management and dietary control of output, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, ostomy supply access and insurance coverage, and the persistent difficulty of travelling internationally with a stoma through airport security systems whose personnel are often untrained to recognise one. Coming from a family with a documented history of colorectal disease across three generations, he speaks frequently on the necessity of screening, and has counselled newly diagnosed patients and fellow ostomates on both the practical and psychological work of returning to ordinary life.

An entrepreneur for more than four decades across Kenya, Ethiopia, Spain, UK and the United States, with a background in business systems and digitisation, he now applies that same systems thinking to his own health. Since 2026 he has been conducting a structured single-subject research project — documenting sleep architecture, continuous glucose data, nutrition, and daily protocols in a unified record, and using artificial intelligence as an analytic partner to identify patterns across them.

Andrew Spiegel has more than two decades of experience in the patient advocacy arena. Mr. Spiegel is in his eleventh year as CEO of the Global Colon Cancer Association. Mr. Spiegel has a personal history with colorectal cancer. In 1998, Spiegel’s mother was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. She exhibited numerous symptoms that were ignored by her physicians, and she died nine months later. It was then that Mr. Spiegel co-founded the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, now the leading United States based national patient advocacy organization dedicated to colorectal cancer. Mr. Spiegel, an attorney, served on the CCA board, and was CEO of the Colorectal Cancer Alliance for nearly 5 years before co-founding GCCA.

In addition to his work in the colorectal cancer community, Mr. Spiegel is an active advocate for healthcare policies both in the US and worldwide. He served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Alliance of Patient Organizations (IAPO) where he chaired the fundraising committee. Mr. Spiegel then co-founded the World Patients Alliance, the largest patient organization in the world working across all diseases. He is a co-founder and currently serves on the steering committee of the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines (ASBM). He is also on the Board of Directors and past chair of the Digestive Disease National Coalition (DDNC). Mr. Spiegel has won multiple awards for his work in patient advocacy.

Mr. Spiegel is a 1986 graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with minors in English and philosophy. He is a 1989 graduate of the Widener University School of Law. After working for a Philadelphia litigation firm, Mr. Spiegel opened his own law firm in 1995.

Nicole Sheahan is President of the Global Colon Cancer Association (GCCA), where she leads the organization’s global strategy to advance equitable access to colorectal cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and care. She provides executive leadership across GCCA’s programs, partnerships, and global advocacy efforts, with a focus on reducing disparities and strengthening patient-centered health systems worldwide.

Under Ms. Sheahan’s leadership, GCCA has launched and expanded several high-impact global initiatives. These include Know Your Biomarker, an awareness, education, and advocacy campaign promoting access to colorectal cancer biomarker testing, the CRC Health Equity Grants program, which provides timely financial support to member organizations addressing urgent equity gaps in their communities, and GCCA’s Patient Advocacy Mentorship Program, designed to build advocacy capacity and leadership across the global colorectal cancer community.

Ms. Sheahan brings extensive nonprofit leadership experience to her role, having previously served in senior leadership positions at the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, including Chief Development Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Earlier in her career, she led corporate giving initiatives and large-scale events for a nonprofit organization serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Advocacy has been a defining thread throughout Ms. Sheahan’s career, shaped early by her family’s experience with cancer and her involvement in the formation of the Greater Washington Coalition for Cancer Survivors.

Ms. Sheahan serves on the Executive Committee of From Testing to Targeted Treatments (FT3) and is Co-Chair of the Global Cancer Coalitions Network. She also volunteers with the World Patients Alliance and is a frequent speaker on precision medicine, patient-centered policy, and cross-sector partnerships.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.