Season FIVE Episode ELEVEN of the Your Story Our Fight® podcast welcomes Rene Santos. Rene is from Pasadena, California, and was diagnosed with lupus at 13 years old. This experience shaped his resilience and perspective on healthcare early in life. Growing up, Rene played basketball through high school and into college. Today Rene stays committed to fitness and overall wellness. Living with lupus has fueled his passion to advocate for others facing similar challenges and to raise awareness within the community. Rene is currently working toward becoming a Physician Assistant and will be attending Charles Drew University starting in August 2026. Through his journey and future career, Rene hopes to make a meaningful impact by serving underserved communities and providing compassionate, patient-centered care.

Season FIVE Episode TEN of the Your Story Our Fight® podcast welcomes Dr. Aly Cohen. Dr. Aly Cohen is a board-certified rheumatologist, integrative medicine, and environmental health expert in Princeton, New Jersey, and she educates the public about the harmful toxins in our lives and their impacts on health. She delivers speaker engagements, appears as a guest expert on news outlets and podcasts, and authored the best-selling book, “Detoxify: The Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend Against Them” (Simon & Schuster, 2025). She is a published medical author and editor, legal medical expert, and also creates environmental health curricula for schools and physician training programs, such as the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine, Southern California University of Health Sciences, Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, and the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Cohen earned her undergraduate degree in medical anthropology and human evolution from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her medical training at Hahnemann University Hospital School of Medicine in Philadelphia and interned and residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. She further specialized in rheumatology and autoimmune diseases at Montefiore Hospital/Albert Einstein University Hospital in the Bronx, New York.

Season FIVE Episode NINE of the Your Story Our Fight® podcast welcomes Ruth Wilson. Ruth Wilson is a scientist and laboratory leader with a background in immunology and microbiology, as well as data science. Diagnosed with lupus as a young adult, she became a passionate advocate and transformed her personal challenges into a mission to amplify the patient voice and drive more compassionate, patient-centered research. Through her advocacy, mentorship, and community leadership, Ruth works to ensure that science never loses sight of the human stories behind the data. She is deeply committed to advancing awareness, improving outcomes, and bringing hope to others navigating life with lupus.