AICR
Tonight, the Stand Up To Cancer telecast returns to the nation’s airwaves, and all of us at AICR welcome the effort.
Stand Up to Cancer is a privately supported effort to direct funding to “Dream Teams” of researchers representing various disciplines within the cancer field. Funds raised during tonight’s telecast will be administered by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
More cancer research is needed, and we are grateful for any and all help in meeting that need. AICR has worked for decades to fund the basic research that leads to life-saving breakthroughs, and we applaud Stand Up To Cancer for its recent work setting up methods to speed funding toward pharmaceutical trials that will help make the lives of cancer patients better.
We hope the organization also has similar protocols in place to support those researchers who study cancer prevention. Because although drug trials hold tremendous promise to make the lives of cancer patients better, studying how to prevent cancer in the first place – via the interaction of nutrition, physical activity, weight and genetics – involves an entirely different set of questions.
We at AICR have been funding research on cancer risk for 30 years, and we stand ready to aid Stand Up to Cancer by providing our authorities in the diet-cancer field. These individuals, including many who serve on AICR’s Grant Panels, are uniquely qualified to evaluate research proposals related to diet, physical activity, weight and cancer, and to help identify which research areas show the most promise, including:
Dietary supplements such as calcium, vitamin D, folate and selenium
Research suggests that a single vitamin, mineral or phytochemical can have different effects on cancer risk, depending on factors such as dosage, timing of exposure, etc.
Cancer survivorship
Researchers need clear, uniform methods for collecting and analyzing information from cancer survivors on diet, physical activity and weight management.
Cancer risk over the life course
Studies suggest that nutrition and other lifestyle factors may play a more central role in determining cancer risk at specific times during the body’s growth and development.
These are the kind of crucial but still unanswered questions that demand more research. We hope this massive funding initiative will mean more money available to investigate all aspects of cancer – before, during and after treatment.
(The American Institute for Cancer Research is not affiliated with the American Association for Cancer Research.)
