Progress in the "War on Cancer" was slow but steady for much of the past 40 years. In the last decade, however, the pace of innovation has accelerated and death rates for the most common cancers have started to decline. In this panel, four of the world's leading cancer investigators describe the advanced techniques they and others developed through collaborations among academic research centers, private industry and the National Institutes of Health. Progress in areas such as molecularly targeted cancer drugs gives patients substantially greater hope than was thought possible even a few years ago. New understanding of the genetic events that contribute to cancer, the survival strategies of tumors and body's immune response, adoptive immunotherapy and other treatment options emerging from their laboratories are achieving increasing success in holding back cancer progression and turning once-fatal diseases into treatable conditions.