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posted by martyb on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-aim dept.

A panel of experts working on the Obama administration's "cancer moonshot" (announced during the President's State of the Union address) recommend a greater focus on immunotherapy. Their report includes these ten summarized recommendations (bonus videos at link):

  • Network for direct patient engagement
  • Cancer immunotherapy clinical trials network
  • Therapeutic target identification to overcome drug resistance
  • A national cancer data ecosystem for sharing and analysis
  • Fusion oncoproteins in pediatric cancer
  • Symptom management research
  • Prevention and early detection: implementation of evidence-based approaches
  • Retrospective analysis of biospecimens from patients treated with standard of care
  • Generation of human tumor atlases
  • Development of new enabling cancer technologies

"The goal is to focus investigators into these areas because this is where we feel we can make huge progress in the next five years as opposed to the next 10 years," Berger said. In addition to the 10 scientific approaches that the Blue Ribbon Panel recommended, there are additional special projects. These include a demonstration project to test for Lynch syndrome, a heritable genetic condition that increases risk of several types of cancer, to improve early detection and prevention; the establishment of a nationwide pediatric immunotherapy clinical trials network to enhance the speed with which new immunotherapies can be tested in children; exploring patient-derived organoids; and "microdosing" devices to test drug responses in living tumors.

"It feels like exactly the right time to be launching a big new push against cancer," said Alan Ashworth, PhD, FRS, president of UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. "The report of the Blue Ribbon Panel is bold and imaginative and, if properly funded and implemented, will allow major progress in a considerably accelerated time frame."

Also at The Washington Post and NBC.

Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel Report 2016 Draft (72 page PDF)


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:54AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:54AM (#400176) Journal

    Nobody is entitled to free software, but we should all be entitled to equal and free access to medical. Otherwise, it very quickly escalates to where hellbound immoral shitheads like Shkrelli and Bresch can raise barriers to access for desperately needed medicines.

    Once again, we see the traditional heavy abuse of the word, "free", flogged in this post like a Roman galley slave. Free isn't free. Somebody has to pay for it. And that is money that could have gone to schools, roads, health care (yes, health care is much more than just "equal and free access"), emergency services, etc. The thing is, you aren't so entitled, because society ultimately can't afford your scheme. We're already seeing ballooning health care costs in every developed world country over this. It's not just the US, the village idiot with this problem.

    Further, what's going to happen to all those novel medical treatments that just happen to be out of the price range of the equal and free access because they would bankrupt a country? Stop expensive innovations because they can't be afforded for the general public?