MD Anderson launches all-out assault on 8 forms of cancer - Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston

At war with cancer for more than 70 years, the healers of M.D. Anderson have boldly announced a decisive final assault on no fewer than eight forms of the deadly disease.

"We are about to venture on a bold new program where we will no longer accept incremental improvements.  We will take risks.  We will push the envelope.  We will make a difference," said Dr. Gordan Mills, a leader in molecular research at MDA.

Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's courageous commitment to reach the lunar surface, M.D. Anderson's $3 billion "Moon Shots" program will seek outright cures within a decade for two forms of leukemia as well as melanoma, prostate, lung, breast and ovarian cancers.

"Over the last decade, there has been a wonderful convergence, a perfect storm against this horrible disease where we finally have the knowledge the technology and the drug tool kit to move forward," said Mills.

Quoting Kennedy, M.D. Anderson president Dr.Ronald DePinho said he's chosen to drive this unprecedented initiative, "not because it's easy, but because it's hard."

"It's now the will that we have to organize ourselves differently, to say that discovery is not enough.  We must do. We must insure that those discoveries are systematically driven down the field to a clinical endpoint," said DePinho.

Peppered throughout the crowd in support were former M.D. Anderson patients like Carolyn Gough.

"It's going to happen.  It's going to be wonderful," said Gough who traveled from El Paso for the Moon Shots announcement.

And as if the world's most skilled doctors and scientists needed any more inspiration, a gutsy young mother, still waging the cancer fight, offered powerful words of gratitude.
 
"You are saving my life and you are giving my boys a mom," said Bree Sandlin who's being treated for triple negative breast cancer.