I'd argue that progress is slow because the research community is spending too little time on lines of work that can address many or all types of cancer. If you

I'd argue that progress is slow because the research community is spending too little time on lines of work that can address many or all types of cancer. If you look at most cancer research it is highly specific to the molecular biochemistry of one subtype of cancer with a tiny percentage of overall patients. Yet that work is rarely any less costly than any of the possible paths forward to broad cancer therapies. Examples: 1) Telomere extension interdiction, either via disabling telomerase in some way, or more cleverly disabling the effects of telomerase in a targeted fashion in cancer cells only, as has been demonstrated in early stage research. 2) ALT disruption, for the minority of cancers that abuse ALT to extend telomeres rather than telomerase. 3) Chimeric antibody receptor based immunotherapies. Still to soon to tell how broad these might be in their application. 4) CD47 targeting coupled to any discriminating cell destruction system. CD47 seems to be a very broad marker for many types of cancer. But disruption of telomere lengthening is definitely at the top of this list. It should be possible to suppress it globally (both telomerase and ALT) in a patient in the worst case and wait out the cancer's withering before turning it back on. This would be considerably less harmful than chemotherapy and much more effective. It would require no targeting, no cancer specificity, and just work. A number of research groups are working on slices of this technology, but by no means enough.