See It: The Community being helped

Background:

Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of death in the world, killing 58 million people each year. The leading cancer in women is breast cancer, with 1.2 million diagnosed globally and killing 500,000 each year. Overall, 1 in 3 people will develop cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer – affecting almost everyone via a parent, sibling, child, other relative, or a friend. Moreover, cancer strongly disproportionately affects the poor, who have no access to modern medical care.

Mission: A non-profit campaign dedicated to forging alliances between the lay public, corporations, and academia to develop avenues of high-paced cutting-edge research against cancer, and simultaneously spur translation of discoveries and delivery of the latest innovations to the public and the poor who cannot afford existing medical care.

Problem: Besides the enormous disease burden of cancer, much of suffering and cost burden of cancer occurs as result of cancer-- all of which can be avoided by preventing cancer in the first place. However, very little of health education and cancer research is focused on prevention, and the existing knowledge is not well-conveyed to the general public. Additionally, the pace of cancer research is depressingly low, partly due to sparse government funding (e.g. recently due to decreased cancer research funding, 93% of all federal grant applications are rejected vs. 70-75% in past years), complicated processes that stagnate the pace of innovation (e.g. excessive bureaucracy), and slow translation of new scientific discoveries to practice.

Solution: A campaign that adopts an innovative multilateral (“full circle”) approach to cancer research and public health cancer prevention. Notably, we shall fuel both high-paced direct-to-science research innovations and advance direct-to-practice applications via a translational model of preventive medicine and public health. To date, no other non-profit organization has developed nor adopted such a proposed approach. Our approach:
1) Fundraise through grassroots a public campaign and through a concerted matching-donation program via a donation-to-educate mechanism (each external donation conditional the Campaign reaching X individuals via education about approaches to cancer prevention).
2) Collaborating with a network of scientists in academia, the campaign seeks to engage and educate the public via an online forum on scientifically sound approaches to cancer prevention and early detection, and cutting edge advances.
a. To reach out to minority communities to disseminate basic cancer prevention messages, the Campaign seeks to establish a free traveling series of public community forums on healthy lifestyle and disease prevention.
b. Build a community network over time with the communities where we’ve visited and shared our free health information.
3) To efficiently fund direct-to-science research model of channeling funds to cutting-edge innovating cancer research at top institutions (with 100% action, 0% overhead).
4) To spur translation of discoveries to practice via founding a series of “O-Prizes” that seeks to set achievement milestones and spur translation of research to cancer prevention and treatments that have everyday practical applications for the lay public and the poor. (i.e. prizes for developing a cheap and accurate test for ovarian cancer, which to date there are NONE).
5) Finally, leverage our campaign membership base, its network of scientists, supporting organizations, and supporting communities for public advocacy and health policy change.

Benefits:
--Educate the public on known and scientifically established cancer prevention strategies
--Increase the pace of innovation in cutting edge cancer research
--Increase the pace of translation of knowledge to cancer prevention practice
--Providing affordable approaches to cancer prevention and survivorship for the poor
--Ultimately aim to reduce the burden of cancer, especially the less educated and poor who have little or no access to health information or treatments.