Leadership and Expert Views - Cancer Currents Blog
Commentaries from scientific leaders at NCI and other institutions about cancer research topics, programs, and initiatives.
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The HPV Vaccine: Increasing the Use of an Important Cancer Prevention ToolDr. Barbara Rimer, chair of the President’s Cancer Panel, summarizes the panel’s recent report on the HPV vaccine, which includes priorities and strategies to ensure that more people receive this critical cancer vaccine.
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Plans for NCI’s Fiscal Year 2019 BudgetNCI Director Dr. Ned Sharpless describes important decisions NCI leaders have recently made with respect to the institute’s fiscal year 2019 budget, including those related to the Cancer Moonshot and early-stage investigators.
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The Cancer Moonshot: Moving from Planning to ResearchDr. Dinah Singer, co-chair of the Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel, provides an update to the cancer community on the science being supported under the Moonshot initiative.
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NCI-MATCH Update: More Labs, New Arms, and Initial FindingsNCI’s Dr. Lyndsay Harris provides an update on the NCI-MATCH trial, including the opening of new trial treatment arms and the addition of new laboratories to perform testing on tumor samples of prospective trial participants.
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Reflections on My First Year as NCI DirectorOctober 2018 marked Dr. Norman Sharpless’s one-year anniversary as NCI director. He reflects on noteworthy events from the past 12 months and his excitement about leading NCI at such a critical juncture in the history of cancer research.
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Studying “Total Diet” and Its Impact on Health, Including Cancer RiskResearchers are shifting how they assess diet and cancer risk, looking beyond the impact of individual foods or nutrients on health, and taking a more holistic approach, considering dietary patterns across the lifespan.
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Hope and Challenge: The NCI Annual Plan and Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2020NCI has released its Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Plan and Budget Proposal. The plan represents NCI’s best professional judgement on the optimum funding needed to make the most rapid progress against cancer.
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NCI and FDA Address Common Concerns: A Win–Win for Making Progress against CancerNCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless discusses efforts between NCI and FDA to advance progress against cancer, including initiatives to improve labeling of patient tumor and tissue samples and to address challenges presented by new tobacco products.
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Integrating Geriatric Assessment into Cancer Care: A Conversation with Dr. Supriya MohileDr. Supriya Mohile discusses the unique issues experienced by older adults with cancer and efforts to incorporate geriatric assessment into patient care, including the publication of recent ASCO clinical guidelines on geriatric cancer care.
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Enhancements to NCI’s SEER Program Creating New Research OpportunitiesNCI’s SEER program is expanding in size and operating a series of innovative pilot studies. As Dr. Lynne Penberthy explains, these studies are setting the stage for the routine collection of more clinical and genomic data that will help researchers better understand cancer and its impact.
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Developing Biomarkers for Immunotherapy: A Conversation with Drs. Magdalena Thurin and Helen ChenNCI is supporting a new research network to develop biomarkers for cancer immunotherapy. In this interview, NCI’s Dr. Helen Chen and Magdalena Thurin explain the networks’ structure and its goals.
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The Opioid Epidemic and Cancer Pain Management: A Conversation with Dr. Judith PaiceDr. Judith Paice, of the Cancer Pain Program at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, discusses the impacts of the opioid epidemic on cancer patients and how providers can address concerns about opioid misuse when managing cancer pain.
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NExT: Advancing Promising Cancer Therapies from the Lab to Clinical TrialsThe NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NExT) program works with researchers and top scientific experts to advance promising or novel cancer therapies from the earliest stages of research to human clinical trials.
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Maximizing the Prospects for Progress Against CancerNCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless highlights some of the important research findings from the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting and discusses the rapid pace of progress in cancer research.
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Cancer Control in American Indian and Alaska Native Populations: A Conversation with Dr. Shobha SrinivasanAmerican Indian and Alaska Native populations are disproportionately affected by certain cancers. In this interview, Dr. Shobha Srinivasan discusses some of these disparities and programs funded by NCI that are helping to address them.
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NCI Expands Repository of Cancer Research Models: A Conversation with Drs. Doroshow and EvrardNCI is expanding its Patient-Derived Models Repository (PDMR), which provides cancer research models made directly from human tumor tissue. In this Q&A;, Drs. Yvonne Evrard and James Doroshow explain how the new models can help cancer researchers make more rapid progress.
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Advancing Patient Care Through Focused InnovationNCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless describes the focus areas of opportunity he has identified that, with enhanced attention from NCI, he believes can accelerate progress in cancer research and care.
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Forging Military Partnerships to Empower the Cancer Research EnterprisePartnerships and collaborations are an important component of NCI’s success. NCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless describes three efforts made possible by a memorandum of agreement with three US military institutions: the APOLLO network, NAVIGATE, and BD-STEP.
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The Imperative of Addressing Cancer Drug Costs and ValueThe President’s Cancer Panel has released its latest report, Promoting Value, Affordability, and Innovation in Cancer Drug Treatment. The report recommends six actions to maximize the value and affordability of cancer drug treatment.
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Retooling NCI MERIT Awards to Support Budding Cancer ResearchersNCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless discusses how NCI is retooling a grant mechanism, called the MERIT R37 Award, to help early-stage investigators by extending the length of time they can receive funding under their first independent NIH grant.
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The Challenging Landscape of Cancer and Aging: Charting a Way ForwardNCI Director Dr. Norman Sharpless discusses research on aging and cancer, including understanding the biology of aging and its relationship to cancer, the treatment of older patients, and ensuring older patients participate in cancer clinical trials.
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NCI: Taking Risks to Advance ScienceNorman Sharpless, M.D., offers his thoughts on his experience thus far as NCI director and areas, like big data, where NCI can play an important role in advancing science.
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Expanding Cancer Clinical Trial Access for Patients with HIVPeople with HIV are often excluded from clinical trials to protect their safety. Preliminary results from an NCI-sponsored study of an immunotherapy drug show that people with HIV can safely participate in clinical trials.
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An Important Moment in Tobacco ControlNovember 26, 2017, marked a unique moment in US public health history, with the major US tobacco companies issuing the first in a series of court-ordered "corrective statements" about their products.
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Expanding Smoking Cessation Services at NCI-Designated Cancer Centers: An Interview with Dr. Glen MorganNCI’s Dr. Glen Morgan discusses NCI’s Cancer Center Cessation Initiative, including how and why this smoking cessation initiative was developed and its long-term goals.
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Assuming the Role of NCI Director: Working to Accelerate ProgressNorman Sharpless, M.D., discusses his appointment as the director of the National Cancer Institute and his plans for continuing NCI’s long tradition of research excellence and commitment to improving people’s lives.
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Kids First Pediatric Research Program Moves ForwardProgress continues to be made with the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program, which is creating opportunities for investigators from different research communities to share resources and collaborate on research into childhood cancers and certain birth defects.
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Overcoming the Challenges of Metastatic Cancer: An Interview with Dr. Rosandra KaplanNCI’s Dr. Rosandra Kaplan discusses important trends in metastatic cancer research and new ideas for treating and preventing metastatic cancer.
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Bringing the Investigational Breast Cancer Drug Endoxifen from Bench to Bedside with NCI SupportResearchers recognized the potential of endoxifen as a treatment for breast cancer and, with NCI support, developed the compound into a drug now being tested in clinical trials.
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“First in Human” Documentary Highlights NCI Immunotherapy ResearchThe Discovery Channel special, First in Human, will feature some of the groundbreaking work on cancer immunotherapy being done at the NIH Clinical Center, including CAR T-cell therapy and TIL therapy.
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Glioblastoma—Unraveling the Threads: A Q&A; with Drs. Mark Gilbert and Terri Armstrong of the NIH Neuro-Oncology BranchProgress against the brain cancer glioblastoma has been slow. Drs. Mark Gilbert and Terri Armstrong of NCI’s Neuro-Oncology Branch discuss why and what’s being done to change that.
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NCI’s Technology Transfer Center—Moving Inventions and Ideas from the Lab to Patients: An Interview with Dr. Michael SalgallerAn interview with Dr. Michael Salgaller about how NCI’s Technology Transfer Center helps to move new technologies developed by NCI and NIH scientists from the lab to the bedside.
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NCI's CURE Program—21 Years of Increasing Diversity in the Biomedical WorkforceNCI’s CURE program recently celebrated its 21st anniversary of providing training and other support to improve the diversity of people involved in cancer research and care.
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Improving Cancer Control in Rural Communities: Next StepsStudies continue to show disparities in cancer outcomes for people who live in rural parts of the United States. NCI’s Dr. Robert Croyle explains how the institute is working with multiple partners to better understand and address these disparities.
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Introducing DAVE: Online Analysis Tools for the Genomic Data CommonsNCI has released an online, open-access cancer research resource for the Genomic Data Commons called the Data Analysis, Visualization, and Exploration Tools, or DAVE.
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NCI ALMANAC: A New Tool for Research on Cancer Drug CombinationsNCI has released a new, easy-to-use resource called the NCI ALMANAC to help researchers identify potentially promising combinations of cancer drugs.
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Making Greater Progress Against Cancer—Not Just a Hope but a RealityActing NCI Director Dr. Doug Lowy discusses what he calls encouraging news in the most recent Annual Report to the Nation and how NCI is helping to achieve further progress against cancer.
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Advancing the Potential and Promise of Total-Body PET ImagingA total-body PET scanner under development is an ideal example of how NCI and NIH are supporting the development of new research and cancer care-related technologies.
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Colorectal Cancer Incidence Rising in Young Adults: An Interview with Drs. Philip Rosenberg and William AndersonDrs. Philip Rosenberg and William Anderson of NCI discuss a recent study on which they were coauthors that reported an increase in colorectal cancer incidence among adults under age 50 in the United States.
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Putting the Cancer Patient Front and Center: An Interview with NCI’s Dr. Paul JacobsenNCI’s Dr. Paul Jacobsen discusses NCI’s Healthcare Delivery Research Program and its role in advancing innovative research to improve the delivery of cancer care.
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Conditional Reprogramming: An Interview with Dr. Richard Schlegel on Growing Cancer CellsDr. Richard Schlegel describes an innovative cell culture technique he helped to develop. Called conditional reprogramming, the technique can be used to rapidly establish cell cultures of normal and tumor cells from patient samples.
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Cancer Moonshot Moves Forward, Bringing Funding Opportunities for ResearchersNCI has issued a series of funding opportunity announcements aligned with goals of the recommendations in the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot℠ Blue Ribbon Panel report released last fall.
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NCTN/NCORP Data Archive: Expanding Access to Clinical Trial DataNCI is launching the NCTN/NCORP Data Archive, a centralized repository of patient-level data from phase III clinical trials conducted by NCI’s NCTN and NCORP trials programs and the National Cancer Institute of Canada-Clinical Trials Group.
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The Global Economic Burden of Tobacco: An Interview with Dr. Mark ParascandolaNCI’s Dr. Mark Parascandola answers questions about The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Control, the latest in a series of monographs on tobacco use and tobacco control, which was co-written with the World Health Organization.
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NCI’s Office of Cancer Survivorship: Celebrating 20 Years, Planning for Continued ProgressDr. Julia Rowland, director of NCI’s Office of Cancer Survivorship, on the office’s 20th anniversary and efforts to ensure continued progress in survivorship research and improve survivors’ lives.
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Connected Health: An Important Tool for Making Progress against CancerA new report from the President’s Cancer Panel outlines how connective technologies can promote cancer prevention, enhance patients’ treatment experience, and accelerate progress in cancer research.
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Educating Patients about Genetic Test Results: An Interview with Carol Weil about the COMET StudyThe recently launched COMET study will examine whether educating patients with cancer about genetic testing will increase their knowledge and reduce their stress levels after receiving genomic testing results.
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Forging Collaborations to Spur Global Progress against CancerNCI and NIH announce efforts to establish international collaborations that can accelerate progress in reducing the global cancer burden.
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Meeting Patients Where They Are: Liberating Clinical Trials Data Under the Cancer MoonshotNCI’s new application programming interface (API) that allows anyone to build online tools that help people find NCI-supported clinical trials.
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The Impact and Future of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study: An Interview with Greg Armstrong, M.D.Dr. Greg Armstrong of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study discusses this long-running study and its future.