Let's imagine for a moment if the battles to be fought are all the same and that, if a strategy is successful then it can be applied analogously to all the others! A few hours ago, US President Joe Biden relaunched the “Moonshot ” initiative against cancer, with the aim of reducing the mortality rate in the near future and improving the lives of patients and their families.
The "conquest of the moon" mission involved a group of pharmaceutical companies joining forces to test cancer drugs. The Moonshot launched a few hours ago aims to create a cancer immunotherapy network, examine why the implemented strategies are effective for some patients and not for others; identify ways to overcome the resistance that causes cancer cells not to respond to treatments; build a nationwide cancer data system for researchers, doctors, and patients; encourage research on childhood cancer; reduce the side effects caused by current cancer treatments; ensure prevention strategies; use precision medicine and build 3D maps to help researchers understand how cells interact and evolve into cancer; finally, to develop new technologies and treatments for cancer.
“It's bold, it's ambitious, but it's absolutely doable; just as we have used size to develop cutting-edge vaccines and treatments against Covid-19, we will bring a strong sense of urgency to the fight against cancer ”. These are the words of President Biden, which pave the way for the application of the criteria of urgency, the analogy of feasibility and interconnection to the battle against cancer, announcing a call to action for a mass screening accessible to all, for early diagnosis.
What we have learned from the pandemic is that creating interconnections, and pooling ideas, information, studies, and solutions in science works. The collaboration between states, scientists, and doctors at the forefront as a single whole represented the winning strategy.
By applying this logic to cancer, we will be able to lay the foundations, in the near future, of a reality in which sharing could make a difference. Cancer is also an "emergency", so it should be treated in the same way as Covid. The name of the initiative, Moonshot, is due to the speech by John F. Kennedy, in which he said: "We choose to go to the Moon not because it is easy, but because it is difficult". Only by setting difficult goals can you bring the best energies into play and you can choose which battle to fight, which to postpone, and which to win.
The goal is to cure cancer, make it manageable, lengthen and improve the lives of patients, act for prevention, and make early diagnoses. The promoter of the Moonshot initiative, in 2016, was Barack Obama, who entrusted the mission to Joe Biden as commander of the fight against cancer.
By analogically applying the thrust received in the pandemic, the urgency and the interconnections between minds and studies, establishing the search for a common strategy as a global priority, it will also be possible to identify a possible solution for the "cancer emergency".
This article was published in Fortune Italia by Prof Antonio Giordano. Click here to read the original article.
Read, "5 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Cancer" a Featured interview of Dr. Antonio Giordano in Authority Magazine.
Connect with Dr. Antonio Giordano, Founder & Director of Sbarro Health Research Organization at Temple University : (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram)
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