Press Statement from the Lobular Moon Shot Project Campaign

On Wednesday 9th July 2025, Dr Susan Michaelis, Founder of Lobular Moon Shot Project sadly passed away from lobular breast cancer, 14 years after her initial diagnosis. She died peacefully at 5pm proudly wearing her Lobular Moon Shot Project T-shirt. She was surrounded by her husband Tristan Loraine and some close friends.

Susan launched the Lobular Moon Shot Project with Tristan, in May 2023, to get funding for a £20-million five-year research project to finally understand the basic biology of invasive lobular breast cancer. On her passing, the Lobular Moon Shot Project is the most bipartisan politically supported campaign in the nation, with over 370 MPs of all parties calling on the government to fund vital research into the second most common type of breast cancer. Something Susan was immensely proud of.

Lobular breast cancer accounts for 15% of all breast cancers, 22 women are diagnosed with the disease in the UK every day -  1000 people a day globally. During her 14 years suffering with this cruel and brutal illness, Susan was given eight different forms of breast cancer treatment but none of them were able to stop the disease progressing. None of the treatments she received were developed based on the basic biology of lobular breast cancer, because despite this disease being known about for more than 80 years, this work has not yet been done. Susan and her team of women campaigners who have all been touched by this disease, raised over £125,000 in the last couple of years to set up the infrastructure to carry out this research at the Manchester Breast Centre, led by Professor Robert Clarke. She was due to meet the Health Secretary Mr Wes Streeting on Monday, 14th of July 2025 to ask the government to carry out the will of the majority of MPs and to fund this urgently needed research, research that the former Health Secretary, Ms Victoria Atkins had agreed to fund during her time in the previous government.

Susan’s remarkable campaign to help the millions of women worldwide diagnosed with lobular breast cancer was not the first time she had tried to do good for all of humanity. As a young girl, she always dreamt about being a pilot, but there were very few opportunities for women to become commercial pilots in Australia at the time, so she completed a degree in marketing and saved up the money to become a private pilot. After teaching people to fly, she finally became an airline pilot, starting off in the challenging Northern Territory of Australia, flying to remote communities. In 1994, when she was 32, she started flying the British Aerospace BAe 146 and immediately noticed a strange smell in the aircraft. The breathing air supply was being contaminated with jet engine oil decomposition products. Despite being told there was nothing to be concerned about, she suffered increasing health effects from these exposures. Three years later in 1997, she collapsed after a flight. She felt she was having a stroke. She never flew as an airline pilot again, three years of exposure to a complex mixture of chemicals, including organophosphates, carbon monoxide and endocrine disrupting chemicals had seriously impacted her health and she lost her airline pilot medical certificate.

To understand how this could have happened in what is said to be the safest industry in the world, she started to research the issue. Two years later, she was partly responsible for the Australian Senate carrying out a year-long investigation into the problem. They concluded these chemical exposures were impacting flight safety and crew and public health. She was determined that the aviation industry should resolve the problem, so she undertook the first-ever PhD into the subject and also later qualified as an air accident investigator. She published numerous scientific papers on the subject, briefed airlines, oil manufacturers, governments and countless others on the topic. She debriefed over 1000 passengers and crew who had all suffered similar exposures on other aircraft. In 2007, ten years after her last flight as an airline pilot, Australian Senator Kerry O’Brien revealed a secret agreement between British Aerospace, the aircraft engine manufacturer and two Australian airlines, in which a large sum of money and aircraft parts were given in a settlement for problems relating to the oil contaminating the breathing air supply on the aircraft model she flew. The Senator called the agreement 'cash for silence’. It was signed one year before she started flying on the aircraft but she and other crews were never told about the risks from breathing contaminated air on aircraft.

After her injuries sustained as an airline pilot, Susan completed 1/2 Ironman triathlons and became the first Australian to receive a British Citizen Award for her work in aviation safety.

Last year, a rose named the 'Dr. Susan Michaelis Rose' was launched by Harkness Roses at the Chelsea Flower Show. Susan has appeared or been portrayed in numerous documentaries and films. She will be greatly missed.

Next Monday, 14th July, Tristan and Lobular Moon Shot Project campaigners including: Alison Livingstone, Kate Ford, Katie Swinburne, Kirstin Spencer and Sarah Ramsay Smith will meet with Wes Streeting and Ashley Dalton to discuss if Wes Streeting will action the will of the majority of MPs and fund this vital five-year Lobular Breast Cancer Research Project.

Campaigners are available for interview before and after the meeting.