This is a companion article to the feature, “Clinical Labs and Diagnostics in Cancer Moonshot Initiatives.” 

In April, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched an online platform to enable the research community and the public to submit ideas for the National Cancer Moonshot initiative.1 Submissions will be considered by patient advocates and the moonshot’s blue ribbon panel of scientific experts as they develop NCI’s scientific direction for the initiative.

Announcement of the online platform coincided with the opening of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in New Orleans. Ideas for advancing progress against cancer may be submitted at http://cancerresearchideas.cancer.gov.

The blue ribbon panel held its first meeting on April 11, and will serve as a working group of the presidentially appointed National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB). One of the first actions of the panel was to discuss the establishment of several proposed working groups to focus on specific topic areas. Ideas, which may range from cancer prevention to advancing understanding of the origins of cancer, to reducing cancer health disparities, may be submitted in the following areas:

  • Cancer clinical trials
  • Data sharing
  • Dissemination and population sciences
  • Immunotherapy, combination therapy, and immunoprevention
  • Pediatric cancer
  • Tumor evolution and progression
  • Other exceptional opportunities.

The ideas that are submitted will be discussed and considered by the proposed working groups and the blue ribbon panel as they deliberate about cancer research priorities and opportunities over the next few months. The panel will report its findings to the NCAB later this summer.

REFERENCE

  1. NCI opens online platform to submit ideas about research for cancer moonshot [press release]. Bethesda, Md: National Cancer Institute, 2016. Available at: www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nci-opens-online-platform-submit-ideas-about-research-cancer-moonshot. Accessed April 20, 2016.