Newswise — At 9:00 am on Wednesday, March 27, the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) will host “Breaking Down Barriers to a Cure.” During the hour-long briefing, a panel of experts and patient advocates will discuss financial and structural barriers that limit equitable access to cancer treatment.

The briefing will focus on the vital importance of funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a catalyst for life-saving research discoveries, including breakthroughs in the rapidly advancing field of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) immunotherapy.

AACI President, Dr. Roy A. Jensen, director of The University of Kansas Cancer Center, will moderate the briefing. Dimas Padilla, a three-time survivor of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, will describe his experiences participating in a CAR T clinical trial at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

Additional panelists include Ross A. Frommer, vice president and associate dean at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center Office of Government and Community Affairs in New York City; AACI CAR T steering committee member, Dr. Kunle Odunsi, deputy director, chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology, executive director of the Center for Immunotherapy, and co-leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy research program at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York; and S. Elizabeth “Sam” Sharf, clinical director of the Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Members and staffers are invited to participate in a Q&A with the panelists following the briefing, which will be held in room 2043 of the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. 

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The Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) comprises 98 premier academic and freestanding cancer research centers in the U.S. and Canada. AACI is dedicated to reducing the burden of cancer by enhancing the impact of North America’s leading academic cancer centers. For more information, please visit www.aaci-cancer.org.