Danielle Alstat serves as the Director of Patient Relations for Friends of the PBC Foundation and is a Respiratory Therapist. She has been serving underprivileged communities for over ten years. She has a background working in the Emergency Room and in the Intensive Care Unit, and she worked on the front lines during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Danielle was always the caregiver until she also became the patient.

Danielle’s autoimmune journey began at the end of 2019 when she was diagnosed with primary biliary cholangitis at just 31 years old. It was during her time working in a Covid ICU that she began documenting and blogging her journey as a frontline healthcare worker with autoimmune disease. She was featured as a columnist for Care + Wear, sharing her journey. It was during this time that Danielle really began to see firsthand the disparities in health care by serving one of the most underserved communities in St. Louis. During the pandemic, Danielle was diagnosed with two additional autoimmune diseases. She has since added a few more to her medical history.

In 2023, Danielle started her own Facebook support group for patients living with primary biliary cholangitis across the world called “Life with PBC Primary Biliary Cholangitis.” This is where her advocacy journey for patients living with PBC really started. She was invited to attend the 2024 International PBC Summit hosted by the PBC Foundation in Edinburgh, Scotland. That summer, she became the PBC Patient Representative for the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. Danielle attended her first committee panel meeting in September 2024 while the medication Ocaliva was up for renewal. Danielle was the only person on the committee panel that voted yes to renew Ocaliva. She stated, “Real world evidence shows that with the right patient, and the right dose, Ocaliva works and that cannot be ignored.” It was this panel where Danielle really began to find her voice in the world of advocating for primary biliary cholangitis.