About This Video

Eric Lander believes that one day cancer will be wiped out, much like infectious disease was during the last century. Over the past twenty years, medicine’s ability to treat cancer has greatly increased the life expectancy of patients. Now, as game-changing genomic approaches such as the Cancer Genome Atlas take shape, Lander explains how scientists are identifying specific pathways to turn tumors’ own genes against them—an advancement that may ultimately render history’s most devastating disease into a treatable chronic condition. However, the noted geneticist and presidential science advisor warns that we must be patient with the long, steady march toward a cure: an investment in basic research that may not bring a full return tomorrow, or even in the coming decades.
More from this series: Cancer’s Last Stand

Image courtesy of Wellcome Images; Recorded June 2011; Posted October 2011