Nation's Investment in Cancer Research: An Annual Plan and Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2012

摘要

Advances accrued over the past decade of cancer research have funda-mentally changed the conversations that Americans can have about cancer. Although many still think of a single disease affecting different parts of the body, research tells usthrough new tools and technologies, massive computing power, and new insights from other fieldsthat cancer is, in fact, a collection of many diseases whose ultimate number, causes, and treatment represent a challenging biomedical puzzle. Yet cancers complexity also provides a range of opportunities to confront its many incarnations. We now know that cancer is a disease caused by changes in a cells genetic makeup and its programmed behavior. Sometimes these changes are spontaneous, and sometimes they arise from environmental or behavioral triggers, such as ultraviolet radiation from sunlight or chemicals in tobacco smoke. We have at hand the methods to identify essentially all of the genomic changes in a cell and to use that knowledge to rework the landscape of cancer research, from basic science to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. This knowledge brings usand our national conversation to a crucial opportunity for acceleration in the study of cancer and its treatment. The emerging scientific landscape offers the promise of significant advances for current and future cancer patients, just as it offers scientists at the National Cancer Insti-tuteand in the thousands of laboratories across the United States that receive NCI supportthe opportunity to dramatically increase the pace of lifesaving discoveries where progress has long been steady but mostly incremental. Some of the important scientific discoveries and their potential implications are re-counted in the pages that follow.