Despite a tumultuous year of changes and proposed changes to how the federal government invests in scientific research, the director of the National Cancer Institute, sees a bright future.
“We’re going to see more progress over the next 10 years than we’ve seen in any other 10-year period,” said Anthony Letai, MD, PhD in an interview with Fred Hutch News. “Young people should consider themselves lucky to be alive in cancer research at these times so they can participate in what I think will a very fertile decade of progress.”
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Letai was the featured speaker for the annual President’s Seminar at Fred Hutch Cancer Center last month.
Before becoming the 18th NCI director about a year ago, Letai forged a distinguished career as a medical oncologist and researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
A leader in functional precision oncology, Letai’s research helped advance a class of targeted anticancer drugs called BCL-2 inhibitors. These drugs, a standard therapy for many adults with leukemia, block a key molecular helper that cancer cells use to disarm the cell’s natural self-destruct program.
He spoke to Fred Hutch News about federal funding for cancer research and the role NCI can play to improve clinical trial activation and enrollment.
John Higgins, a staff writer at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, was an education reporter at The Seattle Times and the Akron Beacon Journal. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, where he studied the emerging science of teaching. Reach him at jhiggin2@fredhutch.org or @jhigginswriter.bsky.social.
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