America’s top cancer official has a plan to fix one of the biggest limits to finding new cancer treatments
Wikimedia Commons
- A promising new field of cancer treatment called cancer immunotherapy has been exploding — and with it, hundreds of trials that aim to get to a better understanding of which combinations of treatments work and which don't.
- Dr. Norman Sharpless, the director of the National Cancer Institute, said that the agency has a role to play in learning more about the basic science behind cancer immunotherapy to help prioritize some of these trials over others that likely won't help cancer patients.
- "When you have more ideas than patients, that's a time to really focus on the basic science," Sharpless told Business Insider.
A promising new field of cancer treatment called cancer immunotherapy has been exploding.
Unlike chemotherapy, which involves administering powerful drugs that kill both cancerous and healthy cells (most healthy cells can repair themselves), immunotherapies harness the power of the immune system to help it identify and knock out just the cancerous cells.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
NOW WATCH: This indoor farm in New Jersey can grow 365 days a year and uses 95% less water than a typical farm
See Also:
- Gun control really works — here's the science to prove it
- You may be storing your food all wrong — here's how to keep fruit, veggies, meat, and dairy fresh for longer
- A male birth control pill that dramatically lowers testosterone levels is moving forward into a 3-month trial
DON'T MISS: Bristol-Myers Squibb just claimed 'a breakthrough in cancer research' — but there's a catch