As a physician-scientist specializing in oncology, I find President Obama's State of the Union announcement of a "cancer moonshot," as some have called it, exciting and hopeful.<br />Cancer is the second most common killer of Americans and is destined to become the leading cause of death within the next decade.<br />What cancer research and cancer medicine need right now is someone to take command and control it.<br />The President's commitment to a moonshot against cancer, led by Vice President Joe Biden, is a galvanizing call for a renewed effort to find new tools to fight cancer.<br />In just the past few years, numerous molecular targets important in malignancy have been discovered and many drugs developed to affect those targets.<br />Screening and early detection, combined with appropriate therapy, clearly lower the risk of death from breast, lung, colon and cervix cancer.
