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Sean Parker Announces $250 Million Grant To Fight Cancer (cnn.com)
Robert Mclean, reporting for CNN: Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker announced a $250 million grant on Wednesday to establish the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, which aims to increase collaboration among researchers and accelerate the development of immune therapies. Immunotherapy uses the body's own immune system to help fight cancer, and is considered one of the most promising areas of emerging cancer research. More than 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers and immunologists will participate in the project, including six top cancer centers: Memorial Sloan Kettering, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, Stanford, UCLA and UCSF. The Institute said that under the program, intellectual property licensing, data collection and clinical trials across multiple centers will be unified for the first time. The administration of all intellectual property will be shared across teams.
Silicon Valley billionaire [and Napster founder] Sean Parker... establish[ed] the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy,...under the program, intellectual property licensing... will be unified for the first time. The administration of all intellectual property will be shared across teams.
"Napsterman To Copyright Cure For Cancer", huh? If they succeed, karma dictates that pretty soon everyone will hoarding two full lifetimes worth of Parker Institutes cancer cures, even for cancers that they don't have and have no particular need to cure.
Why do people always start their own foundation? It's a duplication of effort. You need to hire people to run things, need to do all the legal stuff, etc., etc. Why not take that money and give it to an existing organization? The pride of having YOUR NAME on the effort?
Love sees no species.
there are more than 200 cancer treatment centers in the US alone, not counting the inumerable rise of "alternative" treatment centers that forego the scientific method in favour of wreckless naturalism and holistics. Do we need yet another branded expression of a rich mans ego masquerading as anything more than fleeting concern for a personal interest in a likely singular event of cancer? very little attention is paid to the environmental factors --equally inumerable-- that act as either cancer suspect agents or outright carcinogens themselves. Strides have been made in ablating BPA and Lead from our food chain, but more can and should be done to reign in things like Acrylamide and the carte blanc appropriation of nearly every organic and inorganic chemistry development to the amorphous Generally-Regarded-As-Safe (GRAS) monicker so often championed by chemical companies. 250 million dollars applied to strengthening the EPA, the FDA, and legislation designed to protect consumers would do arguably much more to prevent cancer. Reforming the harbingers of the largest cause of preventable disease in the world --major multinational fast and processed food conglomerates-- would surely act more immediately than a pet research institute.
Good people go to bed earlier.
$250 Million is nothing. We've already spent 100 times that amount and have little to show for it.
Yes, 250 million is a drop in the ocean.
Instead of spending all the money on prolonging life and suffering, how about accepting death and spending money on improving life?