Beate has been the Secretary of TFI since 2004. She joined TFI in 2003. She is German, but lives in France. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2000, and shortly after her diagnosis, she created a small French online forum for patients to share her experiences with the disease and the information she found during her cancer journey. The forum “Vivre sans Thyroïde” (“Living without a thyroid gland”) quickly grew, and became a non-profit association for French-speaking patients concerned by different thyroid diseases (from France, but also Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, North Africa, and various African countries). The organization cooperates with health authorities, national and international organizations for rare diseases, medical networks such as the French Tuthyref network for refractory thyroid tumors and the European EndoERN network for rare endocrine diseases.