Lars Wanberg
Lars Wanberg has been a visual artist for over 30 years. He started in front of the camera, learning about photography and storytelling as a model and actor. He gained knowledge of the craft traveling to Europe and Japan, and slowly began to transition behind the camera. He and his wife, Annie, worked as a team. She was art director and stylist, he was photographer and videographer. For a time, they photographed high-end weddings and co-wrote and published a coffee-table book with Barbara Wallace through Zingiber Publishing. Their son, Nils, joined the team and helped grow the company shooting commercial projects, corporate messaging, fashion and special events. Nils is now leading the way into the future capturing stories in 3D with his virtual reality company, Storycast, LCC and BeWellXR.
When Lars was 42, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After failed treatment, he underwent major surgery to remove his bladder, prostate and left kidney. He began to question his mission and his business philosophy, and decided to use his talents to help other cancer patients during their illness. He told stories of patients and doctors to raise awareness of bladder cancer. Overtime, he focused on nonprofits to tell their stories to educate and raise funds, finding a niche in the rare disease space, an often underserved field of research.
In the subsequent years, WMA has helped raise millions of dollars for research through effective storytelling in short films, interviewing scientists, doctors, patients and their families.
After 12 years cancer free, Lars had a recurrence, this time with metastases to his brain. He joined a clinical trial and underwent radiation. After 2 years of treatment he was once again cancer free. He recurred again after 3 years in his cerebrospinal fluid (Leptomeningeal disease) and developed tumors in the ventricles of his brain where the spinal fluid is made. He was given 2 to 4 months to live. After whole brain and spine radiation and systemic immunotherapy the brain tumors were eradicated. He continues on immunotherapy every six weeks and has outlived his prognosis by 2 years.
In 2023 he was asked by the University of Southern California in partnership with Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center, Children’s Hospital LA and Stanford University to join a steering committee as a bladder cancer patient advocate for a Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program through the Convergent Science Cancer Consortium.
Whether in remission or undergoing treatment for cancer, Lars believes good storytelling, no matter what technology is used and how it's delivered, will always be needed to improve the health and happiness of our community.
