In the State of the Union address last month, President Obama announced a “moonshot to cure cancer.” We still haven’t heard many details of what this will entail - other than Congressional budget requests of $755 million in the 2017 budget. Closer to home here in Illinois, Dr. Stephen Boppart is one of the many people who could help make that “moonshoot to cure cancer” a reality. Wednesday morning, the University of Illinois announced he will be the university director of the new GSK Center for Optical Molecular Imaging.

Chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother identified a molecule that appears to cause many cancer cells to self-destruct. This week marks the start of a clinical trial on the potential new drug that has shown promising results when tested on lab animals with cancer. If it is found to be safe and effective in humans, the new drug may improve prognoses for patients with the most aggressive forms of brain cancer and other forms of the disease.

WILL is producing a wealth of content for radio and television tied to the upcoming documentary Cancer: Emperor of All Maladies on WILL-TV on March 31st, April 1st, and April 2nd. All of our stories on cancer will be collected here. 

Have you or has someone close to you made a choice to know more or less about their chances of developing cancer though new genetic tests? Do you work with those tests? We would like to talk with you for an upcoming story on how cancer tests shape our life and influence the decisions we make.