Come on humanity, let's get it done!

My heart is as heavy as a black hole right now. Being a long-term survivor of a devastating and rare disease is REALLY HARD.  When all you can say to someone who was told that they have metastatic disease after 5 years of being NED is that you will send them positive thought’s, it’s unacceptable. When people reach out to you and all you can give in return is a sympathetic voice, it’s unacceptable. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE that we as a species have not put more effort into bringing this disease down. We can do better, all of us. We can turn off the TV for a few minutes a day and figure out what we can do with our unique skill sets to do better. We can redefine the way that science is “tackling” cancer. When scientists care more about high impact papers, and getting tenure than they do about curing disease, it’s UNACCEPTABLE. I have seen it first hand folks, and it doesn’t work. I do not believe that the current structure of PhD --> Postdoc --> Junior faculty --> Desperation for tenure --> More desperation for R01 --> meaningful but non-reproducible results that will likely not lead to cures = a viable option if we as a species are even remotely interested in curing disease. We need to break down the silo’s, collaborate more, initiate HUGE global efforts that will allow something more like PhD+Patient+MD+Mr & Mrs interested --> Big Data --> Resources for everyone to interpret --> much deeper knowledge base --> meaningful data that can be interpreted by all --> cures. Let’s figure this out. Please, let’s come together.