A Legacy of Enduring Discovery

In the aftermath of a bruising election, amid unprecedented political polarization and diminished trust in biomedical science, NCI R01 paylines decreased by more than 50% and Congress voted to drastically cut NIH funding, sowing doubt about the future of cancer research and inciting fears that an entire generation of cancer researchers would be lost. The value of taxpayer-funded basic research was called into question as individual grants were mocked by politicians, and the slow pace of translating fundamental discoveries to the clinic was criticized.The year was 2011. I had just agreed to serve as Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Discovery, the newest journal launched by the American Association for Cancer Research. As drugs hitting targets that the field had been studying for the past 30 years were starting to enter the clinic, I felt strongly that basic scientists and clinicians needed to come together and learn a common language to more quickly move therapeutic interventions into clinical trials for patients with cancer. My fellow founding Editor-in-Chief, José Baselga, shared this vision, which clearly resonated with researchers who were seeking a venue for high-impact translational cancer science and who immediately submitted groundbreaking studies.That time was also marked by important changes in the scientific ecosystem in the United States. Ongoing efforts to clarify intellectual property management and licensing to adapt and strengthen the framework for academic–industry partnerships encouraged academic labs to spin out biotech startups and allowed universities to license discoveries to pharma for further development. The FDA Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 reduced regulatory bottlenecks and expedited clinical development of drugs for serious conditions such as cancer by introducing Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Fast Track, and Priority Review. Other policy shifts promoting data-sharing policies, clinical trial networks, and academic–industry co-development accelerated proof-of-concept studies and biomarker-driven drug development and contributed to a sharp increase in oncology drug approvals. The rapid growth and investment in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, combined with uncertainty in federal funding, drove many academic researchers—both new and established—to take roles at pharmaceutical companies or biotech startups.The years surrounding the launch of Cancer Discovery also marked the beginning of an era of enormous change in scholarly publishing and scientific communication. Large publishers prolifically launched online-only journals collectively publishing thousands of articles per year: When Cancer Discovery received its first impact factor in 2013, it was one of 10,853 journals listed in the yearly Journal Citation Reports, compared with 22,249 in 2025. Cancer Discovery launched more than 2 years before bioRxiv, and over the next decade the cancer research community increasingly utilized preprint servers as both authors and publishers navigated requirements introduced by funders to make content freely available. Researchers increasingly turned to a shifting landscape of social media networks to make connections and share updates on their research. In 2011, many became aware of the power of artificial intelligence because of IBM Watson’s Jeopardy! victory but likely never imagined how pervasive it would become in daily life, let alone biomedical science and scientific publishing.Despite what can sometimes seem to be insurmountable pressures on the scientific enterprise, particularly in the past year, I can confidently say as someone who has seen thousands of manuscripts submitted to this journal over the past 15 years—a period which not only included four different US Presidential administrations but disruptive world events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and numerous armed conflicts and extreme weather events—that there has been incredible, sustained progress in cancer research. You created new technologies to better understand cancer heterogeneity. You harnessed the immune system to attack cancer. You started thinking about how to intercept cancer before it even starts. You created new partnerships between academia and industry. You reimagined team science and created global collaborations and new funding mechanisms. You drugged the undruggable, and you extended survival rates. You rose to the occasion.The past 15 years have been marked by great changes, and the entire ecosystem of biomedical research and scientific publishing has significantly evolved during my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Discovery. It will continue to evolve, and even though there will be selective pressures or bottlenecks or periods of instability, you will evolve with it. It has been an honor to serve as Editor-in-Chief alongside Luis Diaz and work with the Cancer Discovery editorial team, and more than ever we believe that basic scientists and clinicians across academia and industry need to communicate and collaborate with those outside of their areas of expertise and embrace new technologies and approaches to translate discoveries. Because as much as the world may change, our shared commitment to understand, prevent, and treat cancer will not, and I predict that in another 15 years you will marvel not only at the scientific progress that has been made but at your resilience.L.C. Cantley reports grants from NIH during the conduct of the study, as well as nonfinancial support from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute outside the submitted work.