My cancer research PI recently told
us to pay close attention to vice president Biden’s speech at the annual American
Association for Cancer Research meeting. Biden announced his moonshot initiative,
the plan to stop cancer dead in its tracks. Many of the current problems with
cancer research were outlined, and a proposal to provide the aid researchers
need was made. The world has reached a new stage in the fight against cancer. Precision
medicine has allowed scientists break walls they never could before. We can
finally find genetic mutations in patients that allow better treatments
options, but this is only the beginning. Biden wants to press the fast forward button
on cancer research.
Funding plays an important role in research,
and when the vice president tells you he is there for you—it really lifts some
weight off your shoulders. Biden stated that he would like to increase the accessibility
for funding, so that scientists can get started on the projects they have in
mind as soon as possible. He also believes that many scientists are not being
rewarded for thinking outside of the box, and that most projects which are
funded, end up being studies that do not move forward in an innovative way.
Biden believes that the key is to realign the incentives for cancer research. Funding
however is not the only problem.
The problem is the scientific
research infrastructure. Scientists pay money to conduct research, get results,
then submit them to academic journal databases. The journals then decide
whether the research is worthy enough to be published in their journal. There
is also a waiting period which can span anywhere from 6 months to 3 years. The best
part is once it is published, the journal pretty much owns your data. Anyone who
wants to find your results will have to pay a hefty price to gain access to it.
This creates a big dilemma, how can we expect to find a cure for cancer, when a
single paper could take this long to make its way to the public. Scientist thrive
on the opportunity to make connections using the overall movement of research. Biden
believes the cure to this problem might to create database clouds, so that patient’s
data is readily available for anyone conducting trials. Scientists all over the
world sharing data.
“ In the US, the combined value of government,
non-profit, and university-funded research in 2013 was over $158 billion—about
a third of all the R&D in the US that year. Publishers acquire this
research free of charge, and retain the copyrights, even though the public
funded the work. Researchers aren’t paid by publishers for their research as
it’s sold piece-by-piece or by subscription through academic journals. The
reviewers who evaluate the research aren’t paid either. so we pay for it and
then we have to pay again if we want to read it. There’s no way anyone can know
what research and data can reveal unless we set it free.”
There are only a couple problems
with the data cloud proposal. One is making sure the cloud is encrypted so that
all patient data is safe from hackers, and the other is actually recruiting patients.
Recruiting cancer patients is a tremendously difficult task. Most of the time
patients will have only months of life left when diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
Imagine spending your last 6 months of life undergoing tests everyday. Another burden
is the financial hardship associated with cancer. The trial that you may be eligible
for could be thousands of miles away, away from home, family, etc.
We must also consider the stigma
associated with undergoing any medical research trial. Patients don’t like
feeling like lab rats, specially when they are down to the last couple months
of life. Properly educating patients on the benefits of cancer research, and the
prestigious role they play as patients undergoing treatment, need to be
communicated to the general public. Providing incentives for patients, and
increasing the amount of test centers is a crucial step.
Biden's moonshot proposal will
raise a lot of awareness regarding the fight against cancer. He outlines his
full support for cancer research, and this is just another step towards ending
the fight against cancer. The only problem one can think of is the fact that
Biden’s term as vice president is slowly coming to an end. It will be
interesting to keep an eye on what Biden plans to do in the coming years.
#Publicsquare
#Publicsquare
1 comment:
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