. The president has named Danielle Carnival, a neuroscientist who worked on the 2016 cancer initiative, to oversee the moonshot’s second version.Cancer deaths rates have fallen in the 21st century, in part because of reductions in smoking and the advent of novel treatments like immunotherapy. More than anything, the new Biden plan involves the coordination of those efforts as opposed to an entirely new approach or a huge, long-term injection of funding.
The mRNA technology those vaccines, for the most part, use could itself offer a pathway for novel cancer treatments. More broadly, however, the pandemic offers a promising new model for science outside the bounds of established silos. The response to the pandemic “points to things that are possible today,” the first administration official said.leading Americans to collectively miss some 9.5 million cancer screenings
, experts estimate, because of concerns for hospital capacity and the safety of seeing patients in medical settings where the virus could spread. “We need to get back on track,” the second administration official said. Not only that, but the new moonshot will seek to make screenings available in communities where high-quality health care has not been a reality for decades. A study published by researchers from the National Cancer Institute last year found thatEven as divisions over the pandemic seem to only deepen with each passing week, the Biden administration hopes that the battle against cancer will not invite similar controversy.