White House Science Official Comes to CU Anschutz for Cancer Briefing, Moonshot Updates
Top White House science official Arati Prabhakar, PhD, visited the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus on July 17 to meet with Colorado elected officials, University of Colorado leaders, and others from CU’s clinical and research communities. It was a chance to share updates on the work of the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot program.
“I think about the talents around this table and the work that everyone has done to move the needle on cancer. It’s really a privilege to be here,” said Prabhakar, an engineer and applied physicist who is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology as well as President Joe Biden’s chief advisor on science.
The hour-long meeting covered an array of topics, with a focus on advancing cancer research and treatment efforts through collaboration, early detection, expanded screenings, and navigation services to improve patient experience and outcomes.
CU Cancer Center representatives and others emphasized the importance of a comprehensive approach to cancer treatment, expanding access to cutting-edge therapies, developing research partnerships with other institutions, and enhancing engagement with underserved communities. There also were conversations about the role of public health professionals in fostering community well-being.
→ Part of the Plan: CU Cancer Center Works Toward Cancer Moonshot Goals
“We’re immensely proud of the work that we’re doing in cancer,” CU Anschutz Chancellor Don Elliman, Jr., said in welcoming Prabhakar. “We are the only academic medical center in Colorado, and we have the only comprehensive cancer center in the state, and it’s a line of work, both in clinical care and research, that we care deeply about.”
“We think we’re pretty awesome,” CU President Todd Saliman said, citing cancer work underway at CU Anschutz and other campuses. He told Prabhakar: “We want to be your partner in the future, just like we are now. We can’t wait to continue to work together to advance science and care for people.”
James DeGregori, PhD, Courtenay C. and Lucy Patten Davis Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer Research and deputy director of the CU Cancer Center, said the forum “represents what the cancer center is all about: Bringing people together. We recognize that if we’re going to make progress in in fighting cancer and reducing the burden of cancer to our society, we need to do that with collaborative multidisciplinary research.”
DeGregori added that CU Cancer Center Director Richard Schulick, MD, MBA, was unable to attend the meeting “because he’s in surgery right now, removing pancreatic cancer, so he’s literally battling cancer.”
Moonshot update
For her part, Prabhakar offered an update on the Cancer Moonshot, which Biden launched in 2016 as vice president and revived in February 2022 as president, marshaling federal resources with a goal of reducing the nation’s cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years – Prabhakar called it “a huge, hard, really meaningful goal” – as well as improving the experience of people living with cancer.
“This is such a personal passion for the president and first lady because they lost their son to cancer,” Prabhakar said. “But of course they understand that cancer is personal for every single family in America and around the world.”
The moonshot, she said, is “about getting after prevention, getting after early detection, getting after treatments, and getting after this business of changing this challenging experience for people.”
She cited a number of achievements so far, including a ban on a cancer-causing form of asbestos, caps on prescription drug expenses for Medicare-covered older Americans, the allocation of more than $20 billion in the administration’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure measure to make drinking water safer from the so-called “forever chemicals” called PFAS, and efforts by several federal agencies to expand smoking cessation programs as well as cancer screenings.
Elected officials weigh in
Also on hand was U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, who noted that funding for the original Cancer Moonshot was part of the 21st Century Cures Act she co-sponsored in Congress in 2016. She said she and allies in Washington hope to put out a discussion draft of a measure improving and expanding 21st Century Cures before the current congressional session ends.
“Here at CU Anschutz, all the outstanding staff here are leading on the most exciting research,” DeGette said.
→ Two CU Cancer Center Members Attend Biden’s Moonshot Event on Colorectal Cancer
Another panelist was Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, who has been diagnosed with cancer four times and was treated at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), and who serves on the CU Cancer Center’s Community Advisory Council.
“I know how important it is to have access to cutting-edge therapies and support when faced with a frightening future. As a cancer survivor, I wanted to do everything I could to improve health care access for cancer patients during my time in the state legislature,” Primavera said. Now, as part of Gov. Jared Polis’ administration, “my team and I are continuing to improve health care access and outcomes through education, legislation, and community partnership,” she said.
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CU Cancer Center leaders Linda Cook, PhD (left) and James DeGregori, PhD, speak with Arati Prabhakar, PhD, during Prabhakar's visit to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus on July 17, 2024.
Successes and challenges
A series of panelists representing the CU Anschutz and CU Boulder campuses as well as clinical partners UCH and Children’s Hospital Colorado talked of a host of successes and challenges in battling cancer and improving public health. A few highlights:
Eduardo Davila, PhD, a medical oncology faculty member and the CU Cancer Center’s associate director for cancer research training and education coordination, addressed the need for outreach to community members “who don’t even know what we do sometimes. Part of our job is, how do we develop initiatives to inform them?” He added: “The reality is, we’re here to serve the underserved, and that’s a big population that unfortunately has gone ignored for too long.”
Sabrina Spencer, PhD, a CU Cancer Center member on the CU Boulder biochemistry faculty, described research in which fluorescent biosensors and time-lapse microscopy is used to film and track individual cancer cells over many days. “In one of the discoveries we’ve made with this technology, we have identified a rare population of cancer cells that can rewire in just three days to escape from drugs that are meant to block proliferation of cancer cells.”
→ CU Cancer Center Helps Lead National Trial to Evaluate Multicancer Blood Tests
Linda Cook, PhD, David F. & Margaret Turley Grohne Endowed Chair for Cancer Prevention & Control at the Colorado School of Public Health and the CU Cancer Center’s associate director of population sciences, noted that the cancer center is a hub for the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Screening Research Network, launched in February as a clinical trials network to evaluate emerging technologies for cancer screening. “We designed our hub so that we include traditionally underserved populations who are not normally included in frontline clinical trials like this,” Cook said.
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From left: Speakers Eduardo Davila, PhD; Susan Goldenstein of Children's Hospital Colorado; Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera; and Andrea (Andi) Dwyer, director of the CU Cancer Center’s Colorado Cancer Screening Program, during Arati Prabhakar's visit to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus on July 17, 2024.
Andrea (Andi) Dwyer, director of the CU Cancer Center’s Colorado Cancer Screening Program, and her hospital colleagues on the panel talked of the importance of patient navigators in cancer care and the need to expand services as well as improve pay, training, and credentialing. “The more opportunity we have to [expand] the capacity of navigators, the more folks will get in the door into screening, into intervention,” she said. She and others noted with approval that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released a new reimbursement code for patient navigation services focused on patients with cancer and other serious illnesses as a step toward enhancing access to navigation services.
Susan Goldenstein, director of community impact at Children’s Colorado, said the hospital was part of a coalition that helped to pass a state law last year paving the way for Medicaid reimbursement for patient navigation in Colorado. She said that Children's Colorado employs more than 40 community health workers across its locations to help with social-needs screening. “We know the value of community health navigation. It absolutely impacts health outcomes, and we really want to see this program sustained and scalable in the future," she said.
As the meeting closed, Prabhakar said she had “learned a lot. Thanks for what everyone is doing here.”
The event was planned in partnership among the University of Colorado School of Medicine, CU Cancer Center and CU System’s Office of Federal Relations. Other participants at the roundtable include Peter Buttrick, MD, and Courtney DiFilippo from the CU School of Medicine; Travis Leiker, MPA, from the Colorado School of Public Health; and Sarah Reynolds from UCHealth.
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Photo above: Panelists meet with White House science official Arati Prabhakar, PhD, during her visit to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus on July 17, 2024.
Photo at top: Panelists meet with White House science official Arati Prabhakar, PhD, during her visit to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus on July 17, 2024. From left: James DeGregori, PhD, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center; CU President Todd Saliman; Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera; Prabhakar; U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette; and CU Anschutz Chancellor Don Elliman, Jr.
All photos by Justin LeVett for the CU School of Medicine.