Medical Nobel prize committee deals with surgical scandal
The advisory panel's recommendations should provide the information that law makers want, says Jon Retzlaff, managing director of science policy and government affairs for the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington DC. Retzlaff plans to start lobbying Congress with the recommendations in hand. " The concepts and the grant proposals that will be generated because of these proposals, I think, will inspire Congress to say, 'Yes, this is a worthy project, " he says. For now, uncertainty hangs heavy over moonshot related discussions. At a meeting on 7 September, NCI deputy director Dinah Singer said that the agency aims to launch some moonshot programmes in fiscal year 2017 and might seek extra funding from the private sector. But some NCI advisers are concerned that without substantial new government cash, implementing the advisory panel recommendations could hamper the NCI's current projects. Agency director Douglas Lowy is hoping for a big budget boost from the government. " If we didn't get one, it's not that we wouldn't be able to start anything, " he said. " It's just that the size, scope and speed would be dramatically different. " Despite the uncertainty, the report generated excitement among some cancer researchers. A call to expand the use of proven cancer prevention and early detection strategies was a pleasant surprise, says cancer geneticist Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Although many specialists think that the approach could slash cancer deaths, it has not typically been high on the funding list, he says. " I was very impressed. They picked out some under explored opportunities. " But at the 7 September meeting, several attendees argued that the report should have emphasized the need for research on disparities in cancer deaths that have been linked to race and economic status. " People are dying who shouldn't be dying, " said Mack Roach, a radiation oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco. That issue was largely left to the Moonshot Task Force, a separate advisory panel that is focused on improving access to cancer care and removing barriers to cancer research, said its leader, Greg Simon, chief executive of Poliwogg, a health care investment company in New York City. The task force plans to release its report later this year. The advisory panel's recommendations could not cover the gamut of cancer research, but the breadth of its recommendations was still impressive, says Stephen Elledge, a geneticist at
Nature