Just consider for a minute if this was the first year of running your lab, if you were on the job market as a physician or scientist right now, if you were a resident contemplating a career in cancer research after fellowship, if you were a graduate student or postdoc, if you were an undergraduate or a technician who was looking toward graduate school.
The immune system can be a powerful tool to control cancer. Immune cells within our body detect cancer cells and release payloads that kill them. Transformative science in the last decade has led to the development of therapies that enhance the ability of our immune cells to carry out this function. These therapies, including checkpoint blockade and CAR-T cells, have been lifesaving for many patients that before had untreatable cancer. But, sadly, a majority of patients with advanced solid tumors still succumb to their disease.
NCI-designated cancer centers and academic medical institutions (AMCs) are facing unprecedented threats that jeopardize their ability to conduct groundbreaking research, deliver cutting-edge care, and sustain clinical trials essential to patient treatment.
Although this column is running in The Cancer Letter, where we turn for timely insights and information relevant to the cancer community, I suspect that a lot of our readers are watching college basketball this week.
Technological innovations are often hailed as transformative tools capable of revolutionizing healthcare. From gene editing for conditions like sickle cell disease to AI predicting hospital readmissions, to telemedicine expanding healthcare access, these advancements have the potential to change the way we treat diseases.
I was really excited to get to talk about the role that mentorship plays in women’s leadership development. It’s a topic that I’ve thought a lot about, and also that I’ve benefitted from, and that I think is not always applied with enough intention. There is an art to mentorship, and I want to share some of how that has helped me navigate career transitions and pivot to leadership roles.
As we are all aware, the new presidential administration is moving rapidly to change how science, including health sciences, will be conducted and funded by the federal government, including research supported by the National Institutes of Health.
As a physician-scientist who has navigated drug development from lab bench to bedside to executive boardroom, I want to touch upon a subject that is near and dear to my heart: the state of American science—a linchpin of our healthcare system and national competitiveness.
As cancer specialists, we have to constantly be on the lookout, alert for trends as they emerge—because they might impact the way we best deliver advice or care, or because trends may inform us about specific influences that drive cancers.
Knowledge is power, and this information, true for many cancers, is valuable for everyone to know—either to have an awareness of their own bodies and the factors that they can control, or to create spaces for empathy with persons they might encounter with cancer.
