ScienceInsider's Jocelyn Kaiser reports that the National Cancer Institute has named a "blue ribbon panel" of 28 experts to help Vice President Joe Biden's cancer moonshot program realize its goals.
The panel is a working group of the NCI's National Cancer Advisory Board, and will have three co-chairs: MIT cancer biologist Tyler Jacks, Johns Hopkins cancer immunologist Elizabeth Jaffee, and NCI Acting Deputy Director Dinah Singer, says Kaiser, adding that "the other panelists include cancer center directors, researchers in tumor genomics and cancer immunotherapy, patient advocates, and industry leaders, including Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO of NantWorks, who recently launched his own cancer moonshot to test immunotherapy drugs."
The advisory board plans to hold a meeting in the spring to discuss how academia and industry can collaborate. It will also take ideas from the public, and will then pass its ideas to the NCI advisory board, which plans to release a tentative research plan by late summer, Kaiser adds. The White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force will then deliver a report to President Obama by the end of the year.