Saturday, September 5, 2009

A brave new way to fund cancer research

It is time to think different, forty years of cancer funding have produced disappointing results overall. This is a common feeling in the cancer community. Obviously, this is not completely true. Even if we stand far away from winning the war, we can now thinking of cancer as many different genetic diseases, rationally design drugs, and prolong lives for years as for a chronic illness. In some case, we can definitely cure it, but prevention, rather then treatments helped. Anyhow, results we see are the sum of many little steps. The point is that they might be too little to make the difference. Actually, the way grant system works, induces researcher to propose projects reviewer know will be successful. None wants to fund a fishing expedition without results. But if you already know what you expect the yield of your discovery is more likely to be low. Obama Stimuls Package faced this challenge, a once in a lifetime chance to foster groundbreaking research. But it also should be a good opportunity to re-think of the way we fund research. We won't go to the moon with a bus ticket.


find more on:
Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe

A claim for physician-scientist training in Europe

While everybody is talking about translational research, Europe is just ignoring the issue of training translational researchers. Oversea, despite a climate of economic uncertainty, United States are carrying on a huge effort in order to train physician-scientists feeding a brilliant new generation of researchers who will have the responsibility to lead translational projects and radically change our approach to cancer. They are training as MD/PhD, during residencies of surgery, hemato/oncology, radiation oncology, and then with research fellowships in competitive labs all over the country. Some of them will move into bio tech companies, some will remain into the academia or comprehensive cancer centers and a few will be in community hospital ready to improve the standard of care for most cancer patients. Where is Europe?