Contribute Ideas to The National Cancer Moonshot Project

By Sheryl M. Ness, RN

Have you heard about the National Cancer Moonshot project? This is exciting news to everyone working in the field of cancer. During his 2016 State of the Union address, President Obama announced a national “Moonshot” initiative led by Vice President Biden. This initiative has $1 billion to kick off the work!

In April, a blue ribbon panel of scientific experts, cancer leaders and patient advocates was formed in order to direct the goals of the National Cancer Moonshot initiative. The panel will serve as a working group of the presidentially appointed National Cancer Advisory Board and will provide expert guidance from leaders in the cancer community.

The first priority of the panel is to form working groups to focus on specific topic areas. Ideas, ranging from cancer prevention to advancing understanding of the origins of cancer, to reducing cancer health disparities, may be submitted in the following areas:

Cancer clinical trials

Data sharing

Dissemination and population sciences

Immunotherapy, combination therapy, and immunoprevention

Pediatric cancers

Tumor evolution and progression

Other opportunities

The ideas that are submitted will be discussed and considered by the working groups and the blue ribbon panel as they focus on cancer research priorities and opportunities over the next few months. The panel will report its findings to the advisory board this summer.

President Obama stressed that this initiative will be different than others. The Moonshot project needs input from all Americans to provide creative ideas, innovation and direct feedback to be successful.

Ideas can also be submitted by e-mail (cancerresearch@nih.gov), or by calling the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

To sign up for updates on the initiative, click here. Or follow @Moonshot2020 on Twitter.