How Obama's cancer 'moonshot' can save many lives

  • 9 years ago
As a physician-scientist specializing in oncology, I find President Obama's State of the Union announcement of a "cancer moonshot," as some have called it, exciting and hopeful.
Cancer is the second most common killer of Americans and is destined to become the leading cause of death within the next decade.
What cancer research and cancer medicine need right now is someone to take command and control it.
The President's commitment to a moonshot against cancer, led by Vice President Joe Biden, is a galvanizing call for a renewed effort to find new tools to fight cancer.
In just the past few years, numerous molecular targets important in malignancy have been discovered and many drugs developed to affect those targets.
Screening and early detection, combined with appropriate therapy, clearly lower the risk of death from breast, lung, colon and cervix cancer.

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