U.S. Research Grants Should Require Data Sharing: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Note: President Joe Biden in February launched a “Cancer Moonshot” initiative that aims to reduce the death rate from cancer by 50% in the next 25 years. This is a series of posts with cancer experts offering suggestions to help the Moonshot succeeds. The upcoming 3rd Forbes China Healthcare Summit” on August 27 (August 26 ET) will address “New International Directions For A Reignited Moonshot” as its main theme this year. Registration is free. For more information, contact: julie.lu@forbeschina.com
Cancer takes many forms, yet a common need that would accelerate progress is data sharing, believes Dr. Martin Murphy, the founder of elite U.S. cancer research organizations and a long-time supporter of international collaboration in the fight against cancer.
In particular, Murphy says the Cancer Moonshot provides an opportunity to set Federal requirements that require data sharing as part of government research grant awards. He also believes Moonshot should promote international data sharing.
“First, the Moonshot should get behind the importance of data sharing and make it a critical function of grant making at the Federal level,” Murphy said in a recent interview. “If you are going to receive grants, you’re going to not just share data. It should be in a set format and fashion and in polished ways so that these data are researchable and aggregable. Today, the way we get big data is: ‘You’ve got your pile and I’ve got my pile.’ If we curate a combined pile into a synthetic larger pile, that’s where it starts getting very useful.”
“It’s doable. Everybody knows how to do it, but you got to do it. And Moonshot can do that because it can add a lollipop to this by saying, ‘There will be additional funds made available for these kinds of things that now are going to be required,’” Murphy said.
“That that is a wonderful opportunity for the Moonshot right across the board — for all sorts of clinical data. I don’t know of a patient who’s ever said, ‘I don’t want anybody to ever use my data.’ It’s just the opposite,” said Murphy, the co-founder and former CEO Roundtable on Cancer and a former National Institutes of Health principal investigator. He is also the co-founder of the Shanghai Pilot Health Promotion Center, the roundtable’s independent China counterpart that promotes collaboration in cancer research between the U.S. and China.
So not surprisingly, Murphy second suggestion focuses on international collaboration. “It would be a great enhancement” of the Cancer Moonshot program, he said. “We should really analyze the impediments to international collaborations in the area of data sharing,” Murphy believes.
“Some countries will not share genomic data,” he said. “Well, there’s genomic data, and then there’s genomic data. I don’t want necessarily to see the whole human genome of the Han lineage in China. I don’t even want to see high-level data. I just want to see snippets. If it has to do with lung cancer, I want to know if it has a mutation of the KRAS G12C locus, because now we have a drug that targets that cancer cell.”
Progress in identifying KRAS mutations through collaboration between the U.S. and China has helped speed treatments, Murphy said. “Think of the patients that are living new sunrises” because of coordinated trials, he said. “If that became the norm, Wow! Wow! What a moonshot! It’s not a moonshot for the United States — it’s for the world. The moon is not just the U.S. moon. It is the moon around the entire globe.”
“That would be a difference,” Murphy continued. “If we have a U.S. centric, then what part of the moon are you going hit? Because it’s got to be only the U.S. part of the moon? No, it’s the world.”
“So there is a wonderful opportunity to say, ‘Yes, we understand that there are going be differences (among countries). Let’s find out how far we are apart, and we’ll actually discover how close we are,’” Murphy concluded.
See related posts:
Meet The Scientist Coordinating Joe Biden’s New Cancer Moonshot: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
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Incentivize The Fight Against Cancer That Affects Kids: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Accelerate Cures Through International Collaboration In Clinical Trials: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Biden Deserves Credit For Taking On Cancer: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Social Justice, Outreach, Collaboration: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Close The Gap Between Discovery Research And Patient Care: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Innovative Solutions To Cancer Require Innovative Finance: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Curing Cancer Takes A Global Village: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
Break Through Barriers To Drive Progress: Cancer Moonshot Pathways
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