Question: Is the work on finding the cure for cancer becoming easier or Harder?

John Foster answered on 10 Mar 2014:

Treatments for a number of cancers including testicular cancer, childhood leukemia, breast cancer and skin cancer have meant that lots of patients have been cured from these cancers.

If there is a treatment available then the earlier the cancer is detected the more likely there is to be a benefit and possibly to cure the patient. This part is getting easier, the checks a doctor can make (e.g. breast cancer screening) and the tests scientists perform (e.g. looking at bits of the cancer down a microscope) to see if someone has cancer are getting better. These tests are now more sensitive and can detect cancer in patients earlier, increasing the chance of a cure.

There have been a number of HUGE discoveries that have made researching cures for cancer easier. Such as when scientists developed a way to look at all the genes in a person to look for mutations like those commonly seen in cancers. This started with the Human Genome Project in the 1990-2000s. This has been improved so much that it is now cheap enough for research groups to use on patient samples to see which genes are important for driving cancer. This can lead to better treatments.

Another project called ENCODE, saw researchers find out that not only the genes in our DNA are important for diseases like cancer, but also the bits in between the genes. This may help to find really cool new ways to look at and treat many cancers.

Computers have made the collection and sharing of data much easier!

HOWEVER, all of this research costs money. Compared to other diseases cancer research gets a lot of funding, but it is very hard for researchers competing to get that money. Some cancers are less well funded that others and this can be hard for those researchers working on those cancers.