By Daniel Sullivan, Duke University Medical Center; Roderic Pettigrew, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; Richard Cavanagh, National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Shadi Mamaghani, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering

Among the Cancer Moonshot initiative goals are unleashing the power of data and enhancing data sharing. Efforts to facilitate and promote data sharing are crucial to both researchers and clinicians. With improved sharing of datasets, researchers can speed scientific discovery and the development of effective treatments and diagnostics; care providers can improve diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately health outcomes. Medical imaging plays a central role in cancer treatment and research: each year in the United States, about 23 million computed tomography (CT) scans and 1.6 million positron emission tomography (PET) scans are performed. These scans are needed to diagnose cancer, monitor the effects of treatments, and conduct research on cancer and cancer-related therapies. Scans can also assist in understanding the genomic expression of cancer and its response to gene-based therapies.

1. The Need for Standards

To obtain the greatest value from cancer imaging the scans must be compared across time for a given patient, and across patients and research institutions. This is not a trivial undertaking: image-based assessments of treatment responses can be highly variable, depending on the make and model of the imaging equipment used and how the images were acquired, processed, and the guidelines by which they were interpreted. If images are not uniformly acquired, doctors and researchers may not be able to compare the results of one study with another in the same patient, between groups of patients in a clinical trial, or between studies or institutions. For example, if a cancer patient has a PET scan done at one hospital using one type of scanner and procedures, and two months after treatment has a PET scan on a different scanner or with different procedures, measurements from the two scans might not be comparable. That is, it may be difficult to determine whether any apparent changes between the two studies are due to real changes in the cancer or due to technical differences between the scans.

2. QIBA: An Alliance to Establish Imaging Standards

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) has established the Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance (QIBA) to address this problem. QIBA aims to improve the value and practicality of quantitative imaging biomarkers by reducing variability across devices and time. Over 1000 experts across science, engineering and medicine support the activities to develop standards and advance healthcare using quantitative imaging biomarkers in clinical trials and practice. QIBA has adapted standard terminology and methods traditionally used to describe, evaluate and validate in vitro laboratory assays, and has applied these to quantitative imaging biomarkers. Standardizing the use of quantitative imaging biomarkers can reduce the variance across hardware and software platforms used in different research and treatment centers, and make it more reliable to compare the results of one imaging study with another. A systematic, consensus-driven approach generates “QIBA Profiles” which define universal standards of operation. These Profiles specifically establish comprehensive, systems-engineering, technical standards for image acquisition and processing.

3. QIBA Standards Established for Two Major Imaging Procedures

Two standardized Profiles relevant for acquiring and analyzing images used in cancer studies and treatments are complete; these describe methods for obtaining: 1) accurate and reproducible 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT measurements; and 2) CT tumor volume measurements. Of note is that a growing number of medical practices, imaging vendors, research organizations, and other entities are announcing their commitment to endorse or adopt these QIBA Profiles to improve the reliability of cancer imaging studies. These statements of support mean that more imaging equipment will conform to QIBA standards and more imaging centers will adopt standardized practices for conducting imaging studies.

Use of these QIBA Profiles for standardized quantitative imaging will contribute significantly to improvements in the quality of cancer care, and to the development of more effective therapeutics in oncology. It will help achieve the goal of high-value imaging recently articulated by the consortium of twelve Federal agencies participating in the Interagency Working Group on Medical Imaging.

Daniel Sullivan, M.D. is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Radiology at the Duke University Medical Center and External Relations Liaison, Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance.

Roderic Pettigrew, Ph.D., M.D., is Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health.

Richard Cavanagh, Ph.D. is Director of the Special Programs Office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Shadi Mamaghani, Ph.D. is Senior Scientific Advisor, Office of the Director, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Standards for Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers to Advance Research and Outcomes as part of the… was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is why we were excited when the White House announced the Cancer Moonshot earlier year, declaring a goal to make a decade worth of advances in cancer prevention and treatment in just 5 years.

Of course the word “Moonshot” evokes our race to put a man on the moon in the 1960s. That was an incredibly challenging effort that demanded coordination among expert teams, using the best technology of the day.

We’re trying to do the same thing again. This week we announced that NVIDIA is teaming up with the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy and national research laboratories to build a common discovery platform for cancer called CANDLE, based on today’s state of the art technology: artificial intelligence (AI).

The field of AI has made huge leaps in the last five years. Using Deep learning — a technique where computers teach themselves from massive volumes of data — we have already achieved superhuman results. Take, for example, the field of speech recognition: researchers for the last 20 years had achieved an accuracy rate of only 70%, which was considered unusable. With deep learning on NVIDIA GPUs, Microsoft and Baidu have already surpassed human capability in speech recognition in just 3 years.

We now know that AI required three key elements to be practical: massive amounts of data, sophisticated algorithms and high performance parallel processors (GPUs). We will apply those same three ingredients, feeding petabytes of cancer data from the NCI into CANDLE, a deep learning platform for the nation’s most advanced GPU-accelerated supercomputers.

NVIDIA engineers and computational scientists will contribute to this platform by developing an AI software framework optimized for the latest supercomputing infrastructure, with the goal of achieving 10X annual increases in productivity for cancer researchers.

The CANDLE development is targeted at three precision medicine pilot projects. Deep learning techniques are essential to each.

• CANDLE will help researchers discover the underlying genetic signatures in the DNA and RNA of common cancers. These signatures can help researchers tap into molecular data collected by the Cancer Moonshot Initiative to predict how patients will respond to treatment.
• CANDLE will accelerate the molecular dynamic simulations of key protein interactions. This will help researchers understand the underlying biological mechanisms creating conditions for cancer.
• CANDLE will automate information extraction and analysis of millions of clinical patient records to build a comprehensive cancer surveillance database of disease metastasis and recurrence.

Complicated stuff. But the goal of all these efforts is simple: expedite individual treatments, discover new treatments faster, and more accurately predict how each patient’s cancer will evolve.

These are hard challenges. They’ll require great determination and coordination among many researchers and scientists, just as the original Moonshot did. It wasn’t easy breaking out of Earth’s orbit in the 1960s, either. That’s why NASA used the biggest rocket they had. By using our most powerful tool — deep learning — we hope to achieve the goals of the Cancer Moonshot, and make another giant leap for mankind.

How We’re Bringing AI to the Fight Against Cancer was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the first things I learned was that most people in their 20s have never known someone their age with cancer. I know I hadn’t. And so, it turned out that the hardest thing for me about being sick wasn’t any of the things we normally hear about: losing my hair, throwing up from chemo, baristas at Starbucks calling me “sir” — it was the loneliness and isolation I felt when people in my life disappeared because they didn’t know what to say or do, or just didn’t know how to -be- around me.

At the time, I didn’t have enough life experience or perspective to know that it wasn’t unusual for people to shy away when confronted with cancer, and it wasn’t my fault. As a result, I came to the very painful conclusion that this had happened because there was something wrong with me, and I was sad and angry and resentful. So, when I was done with treatment, I just wanted to put it all behind me and go back to “normal” as fast as I could. It would be about ten years before I was ready to see anything positive that came out of the experience of being sick.

And then, in 2011, my college roommate Amy got cancer. Even though we were all in our mid-30s now and slightly better equipped to handle hard things, I saw it again: most people really struggled with what to say or do. Because I’d had cancer too — a very different kind, but still cancer — people asked me for advice on how to be with her, what to talk about, how to show up. And I had a big realization: my experience as a cancer survivor, which I’d tried so hard to leave behind, had given me a perspective that could help make things easier and less lonely for Amy.

Seeing things from the other side also helped me understand that people’s pulling away from me when I was sick wasn’t about ME not being worthy. It was all about fear. In our culture, very few of us ever learn how to talk about things like illness or loss or death — any of the things I call “death-adjacent.” So when we’re confronted with those things, it can be incredibly scary and uncomfortable. Here’s a crappy irony about being a person: the times we’re at our lowest and loneliest, when we most need human connection, are also the times when people don’t know what to say to us.

I’m a writer and illustrator, and in 2013, I launched my greeting card and gift company. Because I’d been on the receiving end of a lot of “get well” cards, I understood there was a lot of room for improvement. (After all, a “get well” message is sort of awkward if you might not, and a picture of a flower doesn’t help if you’re struggling with what to write on the inside.) And, because of my illness, I also understood how lonely cancer can feel, and how difficult it can be for friends and family to find the right words.

With Empathy™ Cards, I wanted to make cards that would help people who were sick feel seen, supported, understood, and loved. And, at the same time, I wanted to help give struggling friends and family a tool to make it easier to connect.

These cards have really resonated with folks, and I love hearing stories about how they’re used. I’d never say that cancer is a gift — if it is, it’s from someone who really doesn’t like you — but I do think that cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers end up with a different, and valuable, perspective on the experience of being human. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to use my own perspective — and my personal strengths and skills as a writer and illustrator — to make a small difference.

My Moonshot: Making Cancer Less Lonely was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Identifying the Mission

Thanks to remarkable scientific advances, we know that tumors shed a variety of signals into the blood, leaving behind small hints to help identify cancer type, location, and disease-stage. For this reason, researchers are especially interested in developing new ways to use this knowledge to transform how we detect and diagnose cancer, making it possible for a future wherein simple blood draws could help physicians and patients more accurately and successfully manage disease.

The technology — commonly described as liquid biopsies —could offer a less invasive and easily replicable alternative to standard biopsies, experienced by the patient as a simple blood test as compared to, for example, an often painful bone marrow biopsy. In the past decade, there has been some momentum around enhancing the science and clinical utility of liquid biopsies where tumors shed breadcrumbs into blood, urine and saliva.

With the launch of the Cancer Moonshot we’ve seen an amplified commitment in this area. In response to the Vice President’s call to collaborative action in support of the Cancer Moonshot, a team of deeply committed individuals from for-profit companies, professional societies, and universities have come together to accelerate the timeline to achieving their shared vision of developing safe and effective liquid biopsies. They will start by focusing on blood profiling diagnostic technologies, to dramatically improve the lives of cancer patients and their families.

“We are going to start. There are 14 individuals representing a couple of institutions and companies that are doing liquid biopsies, and my team is getting them all together in one room.” —Vice President Joe Biden, September 10, 2016. Los Angeles, CA

Building Momentum

On September 10, 2016, in Los Angeles, CA, the Blood Profiling Atlas came to life. An initial group of 14 representatives from government, academia, foundations, pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies joined together to form the “Blood Profiling Atlas” group to jump start the creation of an open blood profiling database, which will make raw, unprocessed datasets free and publicly available.

“From our first conversations, the group believed liquid biopsy could play a pivotal role in achieving the Vice President’s goal of a decade of progress in half the time. It was clear the atlas could be something tangible to bring all of the stakeholders together and to create a common resource for the scientific community — both critical for the paradigm shift liquid biopsy represents.”
–John Simmons, Translational Science & Diagnostics Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx), Co-Chair Blood Profiling Atlas

The Vice President’s Cancer Moonshot team met in late summer 2016 with the FDA to discuss liquid biopsies, and determine the value of a collaborative group approach to developing the science of blood profiling. The goal was to understand if there was a benefit to demonstrating the level of evidence required to identify performance characteristics of blood profiling assays for cancer treatment, and to developing standard protocols for sample collection, processing, and analysis.

In strong alignment with the Cancer Moonshot, the Blood Profiling Atlas recognizes that a collaborative, well-integrated approach is essential to accelerating positive developments in patient care — detecting tumors faster, diagnosing disease earlier, and tracking disease progression and treatment response more efficiently. The Atlas anticipates that it will also be integral in making sure that the regulatory pathway for supporting these advances is robust.

“The patient is experiencing the disease as a time space continuum with the key questions of when will the disease go, where and which treatment will work right now. Proteogenomic characterization of the cells and delineation of the cellular components escape from the tumor and travel through the blood, giving us a real-time window into the disease. Only if oncologists, patients, scientists, regulators and healthcare providers work closely together can we get clarity on this window.” –Peter Kuhn, Professor at the USC’s Michelson Center for Convergent Biosciences, Co-Chair Blood Profiling Atlas

On October 17, the release of the Cancer Moonshot Fact Sheet officially announced the Blood Profiling Atlas and the following day a group of 45 individuals representing 20 stakeholders convened by the Vice President’s Cancer Moonshot launched the official pilot to aggregate and harmonize raw datasets for further analysis. The pilot project is designed to improve care for patients by creating a new model for how work being done at companies, universities and government agencies can be brought together to accelerate the development and potential approval of highly reliable blood tests for individualized cancer treatment and monitoring.

“To transform the clinical management of prostate cancer in the near term, it is essential to develop new drugs and to use those already available in more precisely defined and biologically relevant patient groups. To this end multidisciplinary teams of scientists and clinicians are now collaborating to develop assays for predictive biomarkers of sensitivity and resistance from a tube of blood, which will limit trial enrollment to patients most likely to respond. This new paradigm is critical for shortening drug development time lines and to reducing patient exposure to unnecessary toxicity from ineffective treatment.” –Howard I. Scher, Chief of the Genitourinary Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Co-Chair Blood Profiling Atlas

Moving Forward

As we look ahead for the Cancer Moonshot, through the end of the Administration and beyond, we see a future filled with researchers, clinicians, patients, non-profits and government agencies coming together to more efficiently and effectively utilize resources and resolutely improve patient care.

“The concept of a ‘Moonshot’ is an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project that — (a) addresses a huge problem, (b) proposes a radical solution, and (c) uses breakthrough technology. Liquid biopsy fits the bill. It is a bigger task than any single institution can tackle, and to realize the potential in the next five years instead of 20, there needs to be a true collaboration with strong coordination.” –Andrew Schade, Distinguished Medical Fellow at Eli Lilly and Company, Co-Chair Blood Profiling Atlas

Lauren Leiman is the Senior Director for External Partnerships of the Vice President’s Cancer Moonshot Task Force. Lauren returns to the White House after serving as a member of the advance team for President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore between 1998 and 2000.

Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2011, when President Obama appointed me, Owen Witte, MD, and Hill Harper, JD, to the President’s Cancer Panel, we were determined to select and frame topics for exploration that would be actionable and make a difference for the cancer community in the United States and beyond. As we viewed challenges in cancer prevention and care, we saw the great but unrealized potential of connected health, a term that captures the ways technology is changing how we manage health.

We have witnessed incredible advances in technology and connectivity over the past 20 years, particularly during President Obama’s time in office. They have transformed most aspects of everyday life, perhaps most powerfully in how we manage our health. Increasingly, many of us look to the Internet when we need health or medical information. New technologies help millions and millions of people around the world monitor physical activity and diet, manage medications, and support one another in navigating cancer and other diagnoses and working toward health goals. The access we now have to unprecedented amounts of health data has changed how we make health-related decisions. All of these ways we use technology to facilitate the efficient and effective collection, flow, and use of health information, or connected health, are essential to support health management and the delivery of quality, patient-centered care, particularly for cancer.

Today, the Panel released our latest report to President Obama, Improving Cancer-Related Outcomes with Connected Health, which focuses on the development and use of technologies to promote cancer prevention, enhance the experience of cancer care for patients and care teams, and accelerate progress in cancer research. The Panel is charged with monitoring the National Cancer Program — which includes all public and private activities focused on preventing, detecting, and treating cancers and on cancer survivorship — and reporting to the President of the United States on barriers to progress. It’s a huge responsibility.

In workshops we held to gather input for this report, we heard all-too-common stories from patients who report being unable to access or share their own health information or get potentially harmful errors corrected in their health records. They told us about having to contact hospitals to get hard copies of records as required for cancer consultations and how difficult this process can be, especially when most of the information is contained within electronic health records as required by law. Health informatics experts described health IT systems that do not “talk” to each other, leaving health information and data critical to patient care trapped in silos. Clinicians shared their frustrations with using poorly designed electronic health record systems. From researchers, we heard about barriers to collaboration and the need for a central location to access, share, and extract knowledge from the mountains of clinical and genomic data we now have the capacity to collect.

Alongside these challenges, we also heard about many exciting examples of technologies that illustrate the potential of connected health, many of which we highlight in the report. But the availability of technologies themselves is only one part of the picture. They should be user-centered — designed with care to meet the needs of people who use them. There is still a lot of unfinished business ahead to break down persisting technological and cultural barriers to data sharing so that all partners involved in a patient’s care have timely and equitable access to the information they need to make decisions. We also must increase substantially the number of people who have access to the Internet, particularly broadband access, which is still lacking for millions in the U.S. Collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and other stakeholders must become the norm to expedite scientific discovery and development of new methods to prevent and treat the disease. Vice President Biden has spoken articulately and forcefully about these critical needs.

Better systems are within our grasp if we reach for them. Optimism for the future, about which President Obama has written so eloquently, reminds us that we need to put today’s advances to work harder tomorrow to cure disease and address the health inequities that persist in the United States.

The Cancer Moonshot amplifies that optimism. It celebrates decades of public health and medical advances we’ve made against cancer and recognizes that we are entering a new, exciting era. It builds a launch pad for this next phase by bringing together the brightest minds and most committed spirits to collaborate to find new ways to prevent and treat cancer. As we further our understanding of the many diseases that comprise cancer and harness the power of emerging technologies and scientific discoveries, we can push the boundaries of what we never imagined possible.

I’m grateful that the Cancer Moonshot has illuminated the important work being done by people — patients, caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, health IT developers, and countless others across the globe — to eliminate cancer as we know it. Ensuring that all have the information and tools needed to accelerate the pace of progress against cancer is what connected health is all about.

Connected Health is Essential to Accelerate Progress Against Cancer was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When President Obama announced the Cancer Moonshot, I knew that the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) had an important contribution to make to the effort. Oncology nurses are on the frontline of cancer care and advocate for patients and their families throughout the cancer journey. As Vice President Biden conducted his listening tour, several oncology nurse scientists participated on his roundtable discussions. In addition to the contributions to those conversations, they showed the public that nurses also conduct research, which builds the foundation for clinical practice. ONS members were particularly proud to learn of the appointment of Deborah Mayer, PhD, RN, AOCN, FAAN, to the Blue Ribbon Panel, as well as the appointments of Kathi Mooney, PhD, RN, FAAN and Jeannine Brant, PhD, APRN, AOCN®, FAAN, to Blue Ribbon Panel working groups.

The Cancer Moonshot Summit in June was a wonderful opportunity not only for me but also for the ONS president and six oncology nurses from practice settings in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Other oncology nurses were also invited, which allowed nurses to participate in all of the breakout sessions. I was invited to be an ignite speaker in the breakout session, “Putting the Patient at the Center of Access and Care.” As an ignite speaker, I shared my belief in the importance and power of the relationship between members of the healthcare team and the patient. A model often seen in nursing is concentric circles with the patient and family at the very core. In following the breakout-facilitated structure, our group brainstormed everything from strategic issues to a plan of action, including a wide range of perspectives and suggestions. This illustration, which was drawn as we talked, shows examples of specific actions that were agreed to in room, but so many more connections and possible collaborations were made.

At the summit and in other settings, Vice President Biden spoke clearly about the role of nurses in the well-being of patients and how they make a difference. Nurses are a critical member of the cancer care team, facilitating an environment that is patient-centered and includes patient-engaged decision-making. For the eight of us to have participated in the summit was a professional honor.

A humorous side note though was that some of the six clinical nurses thought the invite was spam. Once they realized it was genuine, and we contacted them to assure them it was, they were supported by their employers to be away from work responsibilities.

Because this summit brought healthcare providers, patients, researchers, and advocates together there were rich discussions in the breakout sessions and on the breaks. Although everyone had their own priorities, there was unity of the many voices about the importance of collaboration and that is even more evident with the release of the Blue Ribbon Panel’s recommendations. ONS is supporting our nurse scientists to identify our own moonshot priorities that complement these recommendations including developing information and resources for our members so they can help with actions, such as recruiting patients for clinical trials

I am proud that the ONS Board and our members are committed to ongoing support for the Cancer Moonshot and for nurses having the opportunity to participate, collaborate, and lead in advancing its recommendations.

Oncology Nurses at the Moonshot Summit — No, the Invitation Wasn’t Spam was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Dr. Lisa C. Richardson

I was excited with the release of the report on Monday highlighting the novel work across the cancer continuum, especially the work to prevent this devastating disease. CDC is one of the Cancer Moonshot Taskforce partners and is ready to champion the prevention and diagnosis efforts.

As a medical oncologist, I have seen the devastating toll cancer can take on its victims. Unfortunately, I also know first-hand about the heartache of watching someone you love suffer … not as a doctor, but as a niece who lost her aunt to colon cancer in 2013.

In January, 2016, during his State of the Union address, President Obama announced the Cancer Moonshot “for the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the families we can still save.” I was very excited to hear Vice President Biden say on multiple occasions, “Prevention can save more lives than anything else we can do.”

It’s true. Most of the progress we have seen in cancer control is due to decreases in cancer causing risk factors, but more work needs to be done like in decreasing tobacco use and increasing HPV vaccination. Today, we know that there are effective strategies to detect and diagnose certain cancers before it spreads, like colorectal cancer. There are too many adults, like my aunt, who have not had a timely, regular, recommended screening for colorectal cancer.

I love being an oncologist. Some people think it would be depressing, but for me, I get the chance to work hand in hand with patients to help treat their cancer. Losing patients inspires me to work harder on prevention interventions that extend beyond the patient and has the potential to impact families and their communities. Let’s keep doing what we do best and encourage each other to do everything we can to lower the risk of developing cancer.

You can learn more about CDC’s cancer efforts at www.cdc.gov/cancer.

Bringing the Moonshot Home was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The day I was diagnosed with leukemia in February 2012 was a busy one. As my doctor carefully went over my test results and explained next steps, the news did not sink in. I was not hearing that I had cancer; my head was full of things I needed to do when I left the office to prepare for arriving-any-minute house guests, a play at school, and a busy sports schedule for my three children. And my husband was stuck on a runway in New York. And, as usual, my phone was dead. I didn’t have time for leukemia. As I drove home the realization of what he said began to take hold. Slowly, I saw that my life was forever changed.

I had cancer.

From that day to this one, I became first a patient, then an advocate, a fighter, a fundraiser, and an expert on my cancer. I began a four-year journey to save my own life, trying to understand an odyssey of clinical trials, chemotherapy, endless doctor visits, and a reverence for one of the most exalted words one can hear: “remission.” Almost exactly four years later, on the night of January 12, 2016, just months after finishing my last chemo treatment and feeling cautiously hopeful, I settled in to watch President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union Address. And for the second time, the word cancer was about to change my life.

“Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer… So tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done…

For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the families that we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.” — President Obama

This time I was not distracted. I jumped up off the couch with tears of joy in my eyes. I immediately posted his words on Facebook with the comment “I’m in!” And within minutes I had dozens of “likes” and comments from friends and family remembering those we have lost or those who are struggling. So many were asking, “What can I do?” and offering, “Let’s help!” The sense of helplessness I had felt since my own diagnosis was replaced with hope and a tremendous calling. I felt like President Obama was speaking to me, and I was up for the challenge.

That night I made a decision to fight cancer, to do whatever I could do to make Vice President Joe Biden’s challenge a reality. I didn’t know how or what I was going to do but I was going to do it. This was my Moonshot too. I remembered how excited I felt when, at seven years old, my parents woke me up in the middle of that hot summer night in 1969 to see the moon landing. I still remember where I sat and what that black and white television looked like. Would this be the moon landing for my kids? As President Obama concluded his address over an hour later, he called upon ordinary citizens to do extraordinary and inspirational things, which further fueled my excitement.

As a child, I loved hearing stories of how people came together and sacrificed during World War II. People collected scraps, folded bandages, knit blankets and wrote to soldiers, all working to defeat tyranny. The Cancer Moonshot is a similar challenge — bringing diverse experts and ordinary people together to accomplish in the laboratory and in the clinic in five years what would have taken ten. The Moonshot challenges us all to fight the tyranny of cancer, to work fast and to work together.

At the Cancer Moonshot Summit in June, the Vice President welcomed a diverse group of scientists, business people, patient advocates and others to brainstorm to find ways to bring new treatments from the laboratory to the patient more quickly and more affordably. The mood was electric. But real change and progress will need to involve more than just hundreds of people who participated that day.

This is where YOU as an individual can help.

Everyone has different skills, strengths, and resources and no effort is too small. The ways to participate are so varied. Get online and look at cancer.serve.gov to find ways to volunteer in your community. There are over 1,000 volunteer opportunities nationwide, and more being added every day! Some ideas:

• If you enjoy writing or speaking, you can make your voice heard as a cancer advocate.
• You can do anything from hosting a lemonade stand to participating in a walk to raise money research or cancer care.
• If you are healthy, you can participate in a wellness study or donate tissue; if you have cancer, you can participate in a clinical trial.
• Give blood or swab your cheek to be a bone marrow match.
• Volunteer your time at a local hospital or cancer organization.

The list really is endless.

Maybe your skill is helping your friends in every day ways such as assisting with grocery shopping and chores, driving to treatment. or making a meal. If you are a survivor, consider mentoring a patient. Implement your own local program for prevention such as anti smoking for teens. Or set up a partnership in your community to offer free sunscreen at playgrounds or beaches — I recently learned of an effort like this in Miami Beach where sunscreen is being distributed for free. How extraordinary! As small as the letter to a soldier or donating metal scraps may have seemed during WWII, we know that every one of these actions helps.

What else can you do? Please, please make sure that you do whatever you can do to prevent cancer or find it early — don’t smoke, healthy habits, cancer screenings and vaccinations are so important.

While I have yet to achieve remission, I am hopeful that I will continue to have new treatments available for my leukemia. I am grateful that my focus on my own cancer has now become a focus on the Cancer Moonshot. And I am optimistic that the Moonshot will change history. As a person with cancer and now as an advocate, I am asked all the time by others what I once asked of myself, “What can I do?” And the answer remains, “Everything you can.”

I’m fully committed to this effort to make another one of the most exalted words in the English language a common one: cure.

Lynne O’Brien is a moonshot dreamer, Leukemia survivor, lawyer, mother of three, and White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force policy analyst.

What Can I Do to Help the Cancer Moonshot? was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) report outlines 10 bold science initiatives that, if realized, will make major contributions toward achieving a decade’s worth of progress against cancer in five years. By bringing together experts across disciplines and sectors across the cancer community, the BRP built upon decades of scientific knowledge to identify areas of research that are poised for rapid acceleration. Ultimately, the blueprint put forth by the BRP sets the stage for rapid progress in cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship — all while promoting health equity — to improve the lives of patients and their loved ones.

The Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel galvanizes the thinking of leading cancer experts throughout… was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We asked each of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, “Why is now the right time for the Cancer Moonshot to happen?” The Cancer Moonshot Task Force Report details the action their respective agencies have taken, and will be taking, but we wanted to hear from the top brass what they thought.

Charles Bolden, Jr.

Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

“As the team at NASA who delivered the original ‘moonshot’ demonstrated, the answer to ‘why now?’ is always, ‘why not now?’ Why now? Because people are dying. Why now? Because we are on the verge of real breakthroughs. Why now? Because the more work we do today, the more lives we save tomorrow. That’s why we must all do our part — right now — in the fight against cancer.”

Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Secretary, Department of Health and Human Service

“With the Vice President’s Cancer Moonshot, we have an opportunity to unleash the power of medical science to enhance patient care and save lives in communities across our country. We need to seize this opportunity to accelerate progress in our fight against cancer because we know we don’t have a moment to spare and as a Nation we should do no less.”

Robert Califf, MD

Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration

“Extraordinary advances in our understanding of cancer biology have led to more effective drugs and biologics and their companion diagnostics that are capable of precisely targeting patients who will benefit. Today we can work together in new ways to design more efficient clinical studies capable of providing new opportunities for patient participation while answering complex questions more quickly and with improved precision.”

Ashton Carter, PhD

Secretary, Department of Defense

“Our people are our greatest asset and a healthy force is a critical component of our readiness. Together we can achieve the goals of the Cancer Moonshot by leveraging recent technological advances and our robust data systems to develop new ways to improve and maintain the health of our Nation’s warriors. Using nanotechnology will increase our ability to visualize and treat cancers at their earliest signs of development. Likewise, leveraging the advances in proteogenomic science with our data systems will help us to detect and target specific cancer treatment to optimize health outcomes.”

Jane Chu, PhD

Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

“For anyone who has been through the arduous experience of having cancer, we have also seen powerful, therapeutic effects of being involved in the arts. There’s a soothing and restorative quality in the act of creating that allows us to have those moments of expressing ourselves in new ways, with new ideas; those moments where we feel like we’re moving forward, instead of being stuck. We have seen patients increase their ability to manage stress, as well as their physical and emotional pain when they expressed themselves through the arts; which in turn, has given patients more personal control during treatment.”

Francis Collins, MD, PhD.

Director, National Institutes of Health

“Thanks to the convergence of new scientific insights and technological innovations, prospects for success against cancer are better than ever before. Advances arising from the Human Genome Project have taught us much. Indeed, knowledge of what genomic changes are present in a patient’s tumor is becoming more important for successful treatment than knowing where in the body it arose. Some patients are now responding dramatically to this new generation of cancer therapies, and our goal is to make such powerful treatments available for all kinds of cancer.”

France Córdova, PhD

Director, National Science Foundation

“Through the convergence of scientific fields to address grand challenges, we have the opportunity to catalyze one of the most exciting movements in cancer research. Biologists, physical and computer scientists, and engineers and more are coming together to provide important new perspectives, and these interdisciplinary teams are exploring the use of systems and synthetic biology to advance cancer research and treatment.”

Shaun Donovan

Director, White House Office of Management and Budget

“A challenge like cancer requires a coordinated response across the scientific research community. As we seek to fully realize the potential of new technologies and biomedical innovations, the Cancer Moonshot will open the doors to collaboration across agencies and the private sector.”

Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH

Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“We know cancer prevention and control works — now we need to act. The work of the Cancer Moonshot brings a heightened focus on the opportunity to prevent many types of cancer from occurring in the first place.”

Michael Froman, PhD, JD

Ambassador, Trade Representative

“Curing cancer is a defining challenge of our time. After decades of effort, we are in a better position today than ever before to promote innovation, catalyze new breakthroughs in science and technology, form new partnerships between stakeholders, jumpstart research and treatment, and ultimately, end cancer. The Cancer Moonshot represents the best of America: working with partners around the world, confronting our challenges head-on, pushing the bounds of science and technology, and leading global efforts to make the world a better place for our children.”

John Holdren, PhD

Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

“A convergence of multiple lines of scientific and technological advance has made this the right time to invest bigtime in accelerating progress against cancer. These include extraordinary progress in immunotherapy, genomics, proteomics, microbiomes, big data, machine learning, and electronic health records. The potential of combining these advances presents an irresistible opportunity.”

Douglas Lowy, MD

Acting Director National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

“Following years of investment and many scientific advances, we now possess a much deeper understanding of cancer, and this knowledge has already led to new ways to prevent, screen, and treat it. But far too many people still suffer from the disease, and we must address the many challenges that still face patients and their loved ones. We have the opportunity to create a new chapter of progress in the fight against cancer by redoubling our efforts and working together, ultimately reducing the likelihood of people developing cancer and to improving the lives of patients who do develop it.”

Gina McCarthy

Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency

“Major advances in biotechnology, chemical testing, and computational science are contributing to the Nation’s understanding of the environmental determinants of cancer. Today we have an unprecedented opportunity to advance the best science needed to make gains in preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer and we are more prepared than ever to achieve the Cancer Moonshot mission.”

Robert McDonald

Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs

“Curing cancer takes everybody investing together. Already we have seen progress in immunotherapy, genomics, proteomics, microbiomes, big data, machine learning, and electronic health records. Now is the time to work together to transform these advances into real gains in cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment to push the needle forward for all Americans that are touched by cancer.”

Ernest Moniz, PhD

Secretary, Department of Energy

“The next generation of supercomputers are uniquely positioned to both advance the Nation’s innovation agenda and support the transformative advances in cancer research and care. The computational power will not only analyze data faster, but will use artificial intelligence and personalized simulations to give cancer researchers, drug developers, care providers, and patients entirely new strategies to beat cancer. We’ve seen the positive impact that our supercomputers can have on complex projects such as the first sequencing of the human genome — and they are poised to be the catalyst for similar breakthroughs in cancer research.”

Cecilia Muñoz
Director, Domestic Policy Council

“This Administration has led the charge to improve the lives of people with cancer through the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that health insurance companies can no longer deny or charge more for coverage because of cancer and that they cover preventive cancer screenings without cost-sharing or imposing annual or life-time limits on payments for cancer — or any — care. The Cancer Moonshot is building on this legacy by jumpstarting the next wave of cancer prevention, diagnostic, and treatment innovations to deliver a decade worth of advances in the next five years.”

Penny Pritzker, JD

Secretary, Department of Commerce

“Every effort to find a cure for a devastating illness impacting too many American lives each day demands that we work together, break down silos, and leave no stone unturned. We understand that knowledge is the key to winning this battle — that means we have to optimize access to all our data, streamline patent approvals for treatments, and support clinical research to prevent, detect, treat, and ultimately eradicate this disease. All such steps, if taken in tandem, will help us make progress towards a cure.”

Andrew Slavitt

Acting Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

“Curing cancer takes everybody investing together. We are at a time of such great scientific possibility and have an opportunity as a Nation to prioritize making certain that everyone benefits from these advances. Together, we can provide our health care system renewed feedback on what’s working and what’s not.”

Thomas Vilsack, JD

Secretary, Department of Agriculture

“Today, we understand that cancer requires an all-of-the-above approach — from ensuring access to healthy diets and health care for all Americans, no matter where they live, to investing in scientific research that is closer than ever to finding a cure. The Cancer Moonshot will channel all of our collective resources toward this singular goal.”

Jeffrey Zients

Director, White House National Economic Council

“Beyond its physical and emotional impact, cancer can have a profound economic effect on families. ‎Fighting cancer presents an opportunity to not only alleviate the immense human toll of the disease, but also to relieve the financial burdens faced by too many Americans families.”

Read previous chapter:
Reaching Target: Ending Cancer as We Know It

Download the full Cancer Moonshot Task Force report.

Why Now? was originally published in Cancer Moonshot℠ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.