Much has been made of the recent announcement of VP Biden’s cancer moonshot program.  In these days of ever tightening research funding, every little bit helps, and the research community is obviously grateful for any infusion of funds.   However, large-scale approaches to tackling cancer have been a staple of funding ever since Nixon announced his “War on Cancer” back in the 1970s, and any new approaches must grapple with the often complicated history of research funding in this area.  Ronin Institute Research Scholar, Curt Balch, has a interesting post over on LinkedIn breaking down some of these issues.

What seems relatively new in this iteration of the “war”, however, is a greater awareness of the lack of communication between different approaches to those working on cancer.  Biden has specifically mentioned this need and has pledged to “break down silos and bring all cancer fighters together”.  This…