Changes to NIH funding present significant challenges to the scientific and medical research landscape, prompting critical questions about how the research community can adapt and maintain momentum. Non-NIH funders, such as research-oriented foundations, have an opportunity to play increasingly important roles in this environment, and there are valuable lessons to be learned from instances where private funding has successfully advanced medical research.

“What I’ve always wanted to do, whether it’s as a scientist, whether it’s as a health executive, the CEO of the American Cancer Society or now the Parker Institute, it’s to get innovation to people,” she said. “We’re at this moment in time where there is so much discovery that’s happening, the pace of change is truly logarithmic, and yet, too many great ideas don’t ever make it off the laboratory floor.”

Dr. Karen Knudsen, PhD, MBA, Executive Strategic Advisor and Immediate Past CEO of the American Cancer Society, discusses strategies to expand access to cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship.