MD Anderson center launches all-out push against 8 cancers

The largest cancer center in the U.S. is launching a massive "moonshot" effort against eight specific forms of the disease, similar to the all-out push for space exploration 50 years ago. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston expects to spend as much as $3 billion on the project over the next 10 years and already has “tens of millions” of dollars in gifts to jump-start it now, said its president, Dr. Ronald DePinho. The project aims to find cures and lower deaths. Although no overall benchmarks have been set, individual projects for various cancers have specific goals. With genetic information and more precise drugs, "we have many of the tools we need to pick the fight of the 21st century" and find ways to defeat these cancers, DePinho said.