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MD Anderson’s Moon Shots program strives to increase patient survival

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced the creation of its Moon Shots program, which will be designed to significantly increase patient survival over the next decade.

Six multidisciplinary teams will evaluate scientific discoveries, then identify ways to convert that knowledge into clinical advances — such as drugs, devices or tests — as quickly as possible to reduce cancer deaths, according to a press release.

 

Ronald A. DePinho

The teams will include MD Anderson clinicians and researchers, as well as other leaders from industry and academia.

“The Moon Shots Program signals our confidence that the path to curing cancer is in clearer sight than at any other time in history,” Ronald A. DePinho, MD, president of MD Anderson, said in the release. “Humanity urgently needs bold action to defeat cancer. I believe that we have many of the tools we need to pick the fight of the 21st century. Let's focus our energies on approaching cancer comprehensively and systematically, with the precision of an engineer, always asking, ‘What can we do to directly impact patients?’”

The initiative initially will target acute myeloid leukemia/myelodysplastic syndrome, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, melanoma, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and triple-negative breast and ovarian cancers.

Each team will receive funding and other resources to help them pursue efforts that include basic and translational research, novel clinical trials, behavioral interventions and public policy initiatives.

“Nothing on the magnitude of the Moon Shots Program has been attempted by a single academic medical institution,” Frank McCormick, PhD, director of the University of California, San Francisco Cancer Center and president of the American Association for Cancer Research, said in the release. “Moon Shots take MD Anderson's deep bench of multidisciplinary research and patient care resources and offer a collective vision on moving cancer research forward. The process of bringing this amount of horsepower together in such a focused manner is not normally seen in academic medicine and is valuable in and of itself.”