IN A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY: CPRIT IS FREE AGAIN! CONGRATULATIONS!

Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas via mail185.atl21.rsgsv.net	2:24 PM (16 hours ago)
to me

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. CPRIT has been notified by Governor Perry, Lt. Governor Dewhurst and Speaker Straus that the moratorium   on CPRIT’s grant award processes has been lifted. Over the last ten months CPRIT has taken purposeful strides to strengthen agency governance and restore trust in its commitment to the fight against  cancer in Texas. CPRIT appreciates the confidence state leadership has in the agency’s efforts – this action marks a critical milestone for CPRIT. We have been working hard in preparation  for this moment and are ready to move forward with deliberate purpose, accountability and transparency to  serve all Texans. Staff will contact CPRIT grantees affected by the moratorium to provide additional information and next steps  per this announcement. On November 1,  2013, the CPRIT Oversight Committee  will discuss restarting all of CPRIT’s review processes including resuming review of applications that have been submitted and the release of new requests for applications.

CPRIT, a flawed organization?

CPRIT, a great organization in principle, but fundamentally flawed or skewed. By now we know it is a university funding organization.  The idea that CPRIT will ever become what it was imagined to be has been irreversibly given a blow to the cheek.  It still is to be known that it will ever recover. Its funding shackled by politicians who now own this dream-like organization!
And this is very unfortunate because there is increasing evidence that cancer is curable as target therapy has opened a new round of successful therapies. The CPRIT debacle has left deep wounds and critics see in the remnant a living organization bent on continuing the same dance!  The abrupt closure of a few fictitious companies is a tell-tale sign of what is to come unless an uninvolved  visionary leader takes control. Political appointees are unfortunately what we see.  And the objectivity and look from the outside is lost, new wind is not coming and CPRIT's old culture stays the same!  All we will see is a tighter dance, but globally the same dance. Cancer Cure will escape the people one more time!

New researchers are coming to CPRIT backed Universities, but every university has a culture and pressures that shape these researchers.  And the old CPRIT failed to control the events happening after money had been given. Nothing tells the observer that those changes have been put in place.  We know by now that CPRIT is an exclusive university funding source by design (reviewers have strong university ties and see the world in this light and prism) and that the private medical and research sector is excluded.  We should not mention our organization, we have been technically banned given our criticism...CPRIT only wants to hear good things!  But the truth is that it is refusing to hear what would and could make it a grand organization. CPRIT's responsibilities should not stop with the granting of funds, but making sure the implemented projects match CPRIT's objectives and policies even deep into the course of the projects' implementation. That fix has not occurred.  The risk is to end up with disparate and  futile findings (probably commercial). When you look around, there are antibodies commercially available everywhere, however no one is using them in a cohesive plan, and without its own plan for the cure, CPRIT is at the mercy of Universities. And these politicians at the head of CPRIT WILL NOT SEE THE DANGER OF BEING PULLED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER BY POWERFUL UNIVERSITIES.  CPRIT needs to pull away from this cosyness with Universities to achieve its goal quicker. It is playing safe by relying on Universities, but it is loosing its own perspective and is positioning  itself further as being only a university instrument ripe for another round of "cleaner" abuses.