AACR attendees streaming out of NCI Director Harold Varmus's talk and heading out to the street to rally for biomedical research fundingMARY BETH ABERLIN
This year’s meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) was the biggest yet, drawing thousands to the nation’s capital just as the cherry blossoms were peaking. Discussions touched on the role of the tumor microenvironment in disease progression; the potential to engineer a better immune response to fight cancer; and the need for whole genome sequencing and real time data sharing of results to make strides in understanding this heterogeneous disease. Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute, put it best in his special lecture on Monday morning (April 8), just prior to a boisterous rally for biomedical research funding:
“We know that progress has been great, and I believe that, while we have a complex and difficult moment in the set ...
