18 Oct ‘Cancer Moonshot’ represents a call to arms for clinical trial practitioners

David J. Morin, The Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP)

On September 12, 2022, the White House announced the National Cancer Institute’s Vanguard Study on Multi-Cancer Detection to assess the potential of biomarkers for early cancer detection and prevention. This is one component of the “Cancer Moonshot” launched in 2016 with an ambitious goal of marshaling federal resources to significantly reduce cancer deaths in the next several decades.

When we look at healthcare strategies, we have two broad options. We can prevent disease, or we can treat it. Obviously, prevention is preferable, but requires an understanding of causation. Sometimes the cause is environmental—such as that between smoking and lung cancer. It may be biological, as seen with higher rates of diabetes in obese patients. It may be genetic, as with breast and colon cancer. Or it may be a combination of factors.

However, we still do not understand what causes many cancers and this announcement, coming on the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s Moonshot Address about the goal of landing humans on the moon and returning them safely to Earth, comes at a time when our understanding of genetic markers provides many potential tools to pre-identify those at risk. Read more …