President Donald Trump signed legislation on Tuesday that will authorize funds to collect and track samples for research into poorly treated childhood cancers.
The Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research (STAR) Act of 2018 (S. 292) authorizes NIH to award funds to collect biospecimens and related clinical and demographic information from children, adolescents and young adults with cancer enrolled in clinical trials for whom current treatments are least effective. It also provides funding to maintain a secure and searchable database of the samples, and give researchers access to them.
Additionally, it reauthorizes CDC's childhood cancer registry through FY22 and revises the program to allow CDC to provide grants to state cancer registries to improve the collection of information on the epidemiology of childhood cancer.
HHS is also authorized under the law to award funds to develop model systems for monitoring and caring for childhood cancer survivors throughout their lifespan.
S. 292 was passed in March by the Senate and in May by the House of Representatives.