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Cancer Moonshot

Cancer Moonshot: Episode 2

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Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Cancer Moonshot, Episode 2

Graham Easton asks what US Vice President Biden's cancer moonshot can achieve.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon launched a war on cancer. In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden announced a 'moonshot' on cancer. Graham Easton asks what this campaign can achieve.

US Vice President Joe Biden is leading a Cancer Moonshot with $1 billion injection of cash. He is asking researchers to work more closely together and share their data to develop better ways of detecting cancer and to come up with new treatments. On this side of the Atlantic, Cancer Research UK has announced a series of Grand Challenges to find innovative therapies. 

Even veterans of false dawns in the war against cancer believe that these campaigns have arrived at a good time. They say that we're on the cusp of a new era of a brighter outlook for cancer patients. This new era depends on earlier diagnosis, more accurate surgery and radiotherapy, and some new kinds of drugs. 

Dr Graham Easton talks to doctors and scientists about how technology now allows them to read the genetic signature of each individual cancer, which can lead to personalised treatments. He finds out about how treatments that harness the body's immune system are leading to some remarkable recoveries for a handful of patients with some specific cancers, such as melanoma. 

Graham also asks if prevention could be better than cure, and if the extra funding going into cancer research is enough to make a difference.

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Graham Easton explores the anti-cancer campaign of US vice president Joe Biden

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