Cancer Moon Shots
The Moon Shots Program was launched in September 2012. Inspired by America’s drive over 60 years ago to put a man on the moon, the program has an ambitious and comprehensive plan to make a giant leap for cancer patients. Cancer centers, research facilities, drug manufacturers and oncologists are working together to advance cancer treatments, prevention and detection. The program is tackling cancer with a new plan — one that aims to improve cancer prevention, early detection and treatment. Innovation, collaboration and scale get us there faster and give us the framework we need for success and speed up development of new and more effective care.
To ensure that the Cancer Moonshot’s goals and approaches are grounded in the best science, a Cancer Moonshot Task Force consulted with external experts, including the presidentially appointed National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB).
A Blue-Ribbon Panel of experts was established as a working group of the NCAB to assist the board in providing this advice. The panel’s charge was to provide expert advice on the vision, proposed scientific goals, and implementation of the Cancer Moonshot.
Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act in December 2016, authorizing $1.8 billion in funding for the Cancer Moonshot over 7 years. The funding must be appropriated each fiscal year over those 7 years. Congress appropriated $300 million to NCI for fiscal year (FY) 2017, $300 million for FY 2018, $400 million for FY 2019, and $195 million for FY 2020.
Some of Research Initiatives are:
- Direct Patient Engagement Network
- Adult Immunotherapy Network
- Pediatric Immunotherapy Network
- Drug Resistance Network
- National Cancer Data Ecosystem
- Drivers of Childhood Cancers
- Symptom Management
- Hereditary Cancers
- Prevention and Early Detection Strategies
- Retrospective Analysis of Biospecimens
- Human Tumor Atlas Network
- New Enabling Cancer Technologies
The technology is just nothing like what was available twenty years ago, and therefore allows you to do things I could not even have conceived of. This makes for opportunities that are really extraordinary.
In order to continue to generate even more extraordinary opportunities for patients, providers, and the researchers supporting their journeys, the Blue-Ribbon Panel recommends the following actions rooted in advanced big data analytics and cutting-edge research innovation.
- Create a system of encouraging patients to contribute their data
- Develop a clinical trials network focused on immunotherapy
- Identify therapies that can break down cancer’s resistance to treatment
- Build a national big data ecosystem for cancer research
- Expand research efforts targeting major childhood cancers
- Reduce the debilitating side effects of current cancer treatments
- Invest in early detection and preventative care
- Mine historical big data to develop predictive analytics
- Create 3D maps of tumor evolution within a cancer atlas
- Commit to developing new cancer-fighting technologies
This new program should give a huge boost to cancer research. Many of the devices we use today to fight cancer came from technologies developed as part of the space program. Some of the devices are identified below.
- Digital imaging breast biopsy system, developed from Hubble Space Telescope technology.
- Light-emitting diodes (LED) for help in brain cancer surgery
- NASA’s digital signal technology, originally used to recreate images of the moon during the Apollo missions, is the underlying technology that makes CAT scans and MRIs possible.