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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 19 2019, @11:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the feeling-small dept.

Science Magazine:

The U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, will halt funding next year for its long-running Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNEs), which are focused on steering advances in nanotechnology to detect and treat cancer. The shift marks nanotechnology's "natural transition" from an emerging field requiring dedicated support to a more mature enterprise able to compete head to head with other types of cancer research, says Piotr Grodzinski, who heads NCI's Nanodelivery Systems and Devices Branch, which oversees the CCNEs. "This doesn't mean NCI's interest in nanotechnology is decreasing."

Nevertheless, cancer nanotechnology experts see the decision as a blow. "It's disappointing and very shortsighted given the emergence of nanotechnology and medicine," says Chad Mirkin, who directs a CCNE at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. CCNEs have spawned dozens of clinical trials for new drugs and drug delivery devices, as well as novel technologies for diagnosing disease, he says. "Cancer research needs new ways of making new types of medicines. Nanotechnology represents a way to do that," he says.

Maybe they felt there was only a tiny chance they could help treat cancer anyway.


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  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 19 2019, @12:53PM (4 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 19 2019, @12:53PM (#845227) Journal

    Maybe they felt there was only a tiny chance they could help treat cancer anyway.

    Everybody wants to see results.

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday May 19 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Sunday May 19 2019, @03:21PM (#845249)

      Everybody wants to see results.

      Nonsense. Both organizations and individuals have reasons to halt progress under the wrong circumstances as was shown repeatedly in every industry. Here, it's possible some researchers stumbled upon something commercially viable (doesn't' even have to be medically related) and figured out there's no reason to credit the patents to the institute when they can just leave for the private sector and profit on it there. Or maybe the people in-charge of funding were bribed by some company to close the project since they got close enough to a related product or wanted to hire someone on the staff...

      Wherever there's money involved, Occam and Hanlon will join hands to slice and back-stab.

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 19 2019, @04:53PM (1 child)

        by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 19 2019, @04:53PM (#845267) Journal

        errr, it was actually meant as a riff off the tiny chance snark :-p (nanotech, too small to see...)

        --
        В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
        • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:52PM

          by RamiK (1813) on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:52PM (#845276)

          Oh... Eh, well, never mind then.

          (packs up generic 1% placards and a megaphone while heading off to the next door's google rally...)

          --
          compiling...
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:36PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:36PM (#845272) Journal

      You can't see nanobots!

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 19 2019, @01:09PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday May 19 2019, @01:09PM (#845229)

    It's disappointing and very shortsighted

    When you put 70 year old children in charge, you shouldn't expect long horizon projects to be a priority.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:25PM (3 children)

      by Coward, Anonymous (7017) on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:25PM (#845245) Journal

      It's a boondoggle whenever government funds these "centers of excellence". Overall funding won't drop, it's just that other researchers, whose projects may be even more promising, will be able to compete for the money.

      Some people seem to find it inconceivable that the current administration would make a good policy decision.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 19 2019, @03:42PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday May 19 2019, @03:42PM (#845255)

        Some people seem to find it inconceivable that the current administration would make a good policy decision.

        Not at all, the current administration is making lots of random policy decisions in different directions from recent policy, some of them are bound to be good: along the lines of the blind squirrel and the nut theory. Overall, I think we're worse off, but that's one opinion out of 300+ million. I'm sure there are at least 3 million people who will benefit long term from current policy choices, and millions more who are cheering for them even though they, personally, are ending up worse off.

        Shutting down the center and letting the tech float on its own is a slap in the face. A slap in the face that was planned from the day of its inception, but a slap nonetheless. It's a slap that buys political capital in certain circles.

        Overall funding won't drop

        Depends on your definition of overall. I'm sure there are certain subsets of funding which have stayed flat, or even increased, but if you keep the classifications on health research and broaden the scope wide enough, I think you'll find an overall decrease.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @04:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @04:52PM (#845266)

        Some people seem to find it inconceivable that the current administration would make a good policy decision.

        It is hard, if your only source of information is from "respectable" main stream media outlets that have made it their mission to not leave a good hair on Trump. It is hard, if you live in (say) the academic environment, where any sign of Trump support could see you ostracized. It is always easier to believe what others say, than to have a differing opinion.

        I don't know if the CCNE was as big a boondoggle as the SSC, which Bill Clinton (D) shut down in the 90s. Much screaming there about it being closed too, but physicists still got funding. Some experiments did have to be moved to Europe, but physics has progressed. The main fallout may just have been the cutting of several thousand administrators' jobs.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @06:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @06:48PM (#845293)

        Some people seem to find it inconceivable that the current administration would make a good policy decision.

        Why is that, do you think?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:10PM (4 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:10PM (#845239)

    Hardly surprising. The medical industry is not in the business of making people better. They are in the business of making people take over $9000 placebo pills for the rest of their lives.

    If someone found a cure for cancer, they would do their absolute best to bury it. You don't suppose...

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @02:15PM (#845240)

      They have made it literally impossible for someone to find a cure for cancer by changing the definition. Now it is "many diseases". This is how NHST destroys, folks. Endless waste of resources with no cumulative knowledge and all sorts of unreproducible, often conflicting results.

      In functioning science stuff becomes easier to understand as you learn more about it as universal(-ish) laws are discovered, the exact opposite has happened since the war on cancer was started.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:39PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 19 2019, @05:39PM (#845274) Journal

      Nanobots are the only reasonable way to cure cancer. Check back in 50 years.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @02:00AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @02:00AM (#845696)

        The trick will be to defund it properly.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @09:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @09:09PM (#845339)

      "The medical industry is not in the business of making people better. They are in the business of making people take over $9000 placebo pills for the rest of their lives."

      they are in the business of bilking scared families of major money while they actually administer soft kill weapons like statins to speed up the work of the cancer viruses they shot into you when you were a kid. they probably have an unofficial directive at the top levels to reduce the numbers of people who are using pensions, medicare, 401k savings, etc. can't have those fuckers living forever, you know. only young, ignorant slaves can be allowed to live, until the machines take over.

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