August 12, 2016 (THE HILL) -- Sixty-five years ago our distant fascination with the moon was upended, as President John F. Kennedy challenged our country to put a man on the moon by the end of the 60s. The 1961 proclamation by President Kennedy came to be known as a “moonshot,” and the source of great national pride and inspiration as Neil Armstrong first-touched the surface of the moon in July of 1969.
During his 2016 State of the Union Address, President Obama called for a moonshot of no less significance; identifying a cure for cancer. Not unlike Kennedy’s experience in 1961, when Obama issued this challenge, naysayers and optimists alike jumped on the call for a Cancer Moonshot. The challenge wasn’t lost on the 7.6 million across the globe who are claimed by cancer annually, their loved ones and those who have battled this hideous killer in the scientific and health care communities.
I wholeheartedly support the Moonshot initiative. In fact, in 2007, I made a similar pledge, calling for a doubling of the National Institute of Health’s budget and additional incentives for private investment. As a husband and father to cancer survivors, and a brother of victims, I know firsthand the hope science can provide and devastation cancer can inflict on individuals, on families and communities. The unfortunate reality is that there is no one who has escaped the touch of this devastating disease in some way. Vocal critics of the Moonshot effort have charged that it can’t be done. They have pointed out rightly that cancer isn’t one disease, it’s many; each of them with their own unique attributes; and that curing cancer would require designing specialized cures tailored to every single patient.
Critics beware, the 2016 Cancer Moonshot comes about in an era in which advancements in treatments, attitudes, research and an understanding of cancer as a disease are coming together at a crucial nexus point. The cohesive call of the Cancer Moonshot is harvesting the opportunism of the moment and coupling it with our best resources, giving us our best chance to come together and aggressively go on the offensive against cancer.
Already Vice President Joe Biden has formed a White House Task Force on Cancer which has hosted numerous meetings across the country with researchers, the medical community, pharma, and academic institutions coupled with new federal investments of $1 billion. This significant investment will help provide the funding necessary for researchers to accelerate the development of new cancer detection and treatments, along with collaborations among the private sector, and more efficient, streamlined processes for bringing innovative, life-saving treatments to the market.
Today, we also have a much stronger understanding of the metabolic nature of cancer. Some have hypothesized that cancer tumors are a mutation of viruses. By studying how these cells access nutrients to maintain viability and build new biomass, we can identify ways to alter cell defense through oxidative stress and other means, thus allowing immunotherapies easier access to the tumor cell. In other words, we can supercharge the body’s own ability to heal itself.
New advances in cancer treatment may make it possible for us to achieve the impossible. By tapping into the body’s immune response, we can now identify treatments that target only cancer cells, not healthy cells, and have the ability to literally starve a cancer cell out of existence.
These so-called immunotherapy treatments are currently in development, and designed to attack all types of tumors and blood-related cancers. There are numerous approaches to these immunotherapies, including the use of genomic markers to flag certain cells for destruction, and the employing of T-cells and free radicals to support the body’s immune response.
The days of a “carpet bombing” approach to cancer treatment are waning. More energy, focus and funding are now being applied to smart drugs that can target cancer cells without the often brutal collateral damage to healthy cells that has been the standard of treatment for so long.
What is increasingly clear to the scientific community is that there are multiple means at our disposal for addressing cancer and that combination therapies of known and emerging treatments provide the strongest hope for keeping cancer at bay and even making it a disease of the past like smallpox and polio.
A moonshot isn’t about the obstacles, it’s about the extraordinary opportunity, and when it comes to finding a cure for cancer, it’s worth the challenge. With the combined support of the U.S. public and private sector, featuring some of the brightest minds in science, I feel confident that a cure, or cures, are within our grasp in my lifetime.
Tommy Thompson is the former Secretary of Health and Human Services and former governor of the state of the Wisconsin. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of Tyme Technologies, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing highly targeted cancer therapeutics for a broad range of oncology indications.