Cancer

The recent leaps of science—sequencing the human genome, advancing the world-changing technology of CRISPR, deepening knowledge of the brain—owe much to Francis Collins’s brilliant mind and steady hand. Who better, then, to talk about what transformative discoveries come next? Genomics, immunotherapy, precision medicine, new uses for mRNA technology, and other interdiscipl...

In 2021—five decades after President Richard Nixon declared a War on Cancer—some 1.9 million new cancer cases were diagnosed and the scourge killed more than 600,000 Americans. Yet we have made extraordinary progress on the battlefront in the same time frame. Childhood leukemia can often be cured, death rates for colorectal, cervical, and prostate cancer have fallen by hal...

Advances, limitations, and potential at the cutting-edge of cancer care.

Whether the headlines describe a “cancer moonshot” or a “war on cancer,” they capture a yearning and determination to eliminate the scourge of malignancy. Artificial intelligence, huge genomic data sets, and expanded access to clinical trials are pushing forward knowledge about the package of diseases we call cancer. As the treatment arsenal expands, it highlights both the...

Cancer is on the rise in Africa, with the World Health Organization predicting that by 2020, it will take the lives of one million people a year across the continent. The most common forms of the disease in Africa -- breast, cervical and prostate cancers -- are also the most treatable, but drugs have been in scarce supply, and the price of treatment remains a huge obstacle...

Health consumers are increasingly using wearable technology to track and analyze their behavior, and social media to exchange experiences with their peers. Ready access to electronic health records and countless medical websites, some reliable and some not, add to the buckets of information within their reach. The result is that doctors no longer call every shot when it co...

When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation giving birth to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1937, he brought a decade of political wrangling to a close and created the world's foremost cancer research and training infrastructure. Eighty years later, with an annual budget of some $5 billion, NCI remains at the forefront of investigations into cancer biology and cli...

The Second City and Caring Across Generations have joined forces to develop a unique training program that strengthens the skills of caregivers through improvisational techniques and practices. Discover how it will work in an evening that offers stories, insights, and interactive experiences that reveal the power of collaborative communication. You will participate in exer...

A bone marrow transplant was Maggie Lake’s only hope of surviving lymphoma, and her sister, Elizabeth Lesser, was the perfect match. But Elizabeth’s decision to become a donor meant not only agreeing to a painful procedure, but also to exploring with Maggie their mind/body connection as they raced against the clock to clean up their relationship and strengthen their bond....

Hear Saketh Guntupalli talk about his new book, Sex and Cancer: Intimacy, Romance and Love After Diagnosis and Treatment. The seeds of this work were planted at Spotlight Health two years ago, when Guntupalli participated in a conversation about flibanserin, then a newly approved drug nicknamed “Viagra for women.” A gynecologic oncologist, Guntupalli realized the drug migh...