• Big Think Cancer

    Advancements in Early Cancer Detection

    February 21, 2011

    Big Think Cancer

    Cancer is responsible for 1 out of 5 deaths in the U.S., second only to heart disease. According to the American Cancer Society, over one and a half million Americans were diagnosed with some form of cancer last year, and more than 560,000 died from the disease. While there have been promising advances in cancer research over the past few decades, a definitive cure has not been found. Nevertheless, a new era of cancer research is dawning.

    Leading scientists are now looking at ways to supplement existing treatments-including the procedure of cutting or burning out cancer with chemotherapy and radiation-with more precise, less harmful and ultimately more successful therapies and prevention.

    In this short video, Dr. Harold Varmus and James Christensen discuss that while most early detection tools are very imprecise, researchers hope we will one day be able to look for damaged DNA in the bloodstream as a sign of cancer.

    Dr. Harold Varmus, Director of the National Cancer Institute

    James Christensen, Director of Oncology Translational Research at Pfizer

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  1. Boomer said:

    Gordon, I believe you can follow up with the series at Big Think’s website. They’ve really done a superb job over all three of the “Breakthroughs” and I would definitely suggest checking out the ones on Alzheimer’s and Autism if you haven’t already done so.

    on February 23, 2011 at 4:08 pm

  2. Gordon Gould said:

    Is this an ongoing discussion? Having a broad overview on cancer is great, and now I’d like to get a bit more granular– maybe focus on certain types of cancers with leading scientists and researchers in those fields. Perhaps even some doctors who treat patients, who can describe the disease in a way the audience can truly understand and relate to — it’s important that the audience has an emotional connection to science research — they can put a human face on it. This is a great start and I’d like to see more

    on February 22, 2011 at 6:17 pm