President Obama announced during his State of the Union address Tuesday that he wants to launch an initiative to do just that, and he has appointed Biden to lead it.
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In the following campaign, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush returned to the space metaphor. He promised to “fund and lead a medical moonshot to reach far beyond what seems possible today”, to cure not just cancer but many ills associated with aging. He already has met with more than 200 physicians, researchers and philanthropists in preparation for the effort and is scheduled to visit the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center Friday for a roundtable discussion about strategy.
The loss of his son, Beau Biden, to brain cancer will make the assignment not just a noble post-political role for him but, more importantly, a personal crusade as well.
“The goal of this initiative – this “moonshot” – is to seize the moment”, Biden said in a statement released following the State of the Union.
“It produces pencil beam radiation, and each time we treat the patient, one little pencil beam gets put into the patient and that one little beam has nearly no radiation”, Gilroy says.
Adler-Milstein said momentum could come from new regulations and tough talk from federal health officials. Even some ovarian cancers and lymphomas that don’t go away completely can now be treated more like a chronic illness that can be managed if watched and treated.
Some coordination exists among cancer research institutions, but more can be done to increase those efforts and to ensure they’re done more effectively, said Dr. Ray Hohl, director of the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute. “To accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure, and to unleash new discoveries and breakthroughs for other deadly diseases”.
Genetic differences inside tumors help explain why one person’s cancer is more aggressive than another’s, and why certain drugs work for one patient but not the next, especially newer “targeted therapies” that are created to home in on certain characteristics.
“That data all exists now in electronic medical records”, said Dr. Richard Schilsky is the Chief Medical Officer for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
“I’m pleased the vice president will be kicking off this project in Philadelphia”, Meehan said. Are we going to need a different treatment for every individual’s cancer?
Schwarzburg also shared with FOX13 the West Cancer Center is involved with 50 clinical trials for new cancer medication. University of Chicago’s Dr. Tanguy Siewert is developing new therapies that target one’s own immune system to fight cancer. And I think we can see the kinds of things that we need to do, what needs to work out to begin to control more of the disease in more people.
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As one of his final acts in office, Biden has resolved to “break down silence” he says is pervasive throughout the sprawling and fragmented world of oncologists, scientists and benefactors.
