The promise of a cancer-free world: where are we? The presidential address from the 35th annual meeting of the American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO).

Over the past several decades, there have been many individuals who have in some way contributed to where we are in terms of conquering cancer and have paved the way for us to conduct our research today. Some of these individuals did not even know that they had a profound impact on the war on cancer. Take for example, Henrietta Lacks. She did not know or even comprehend that her cervical cancer cells were taken and used by Dr. George Gey to create the HeLa cell line (1), the first cells grown successfully in culture, which contributed to many, many discoveries, for example, the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (2), that many of us have used to discover ways to end cancer. In examining the promise of a cancerfree world, I am going to focus on 4 numbers, as a good epidemiologist would. At this meeting, we celebrate: 40 years since the signing of the National Cancer Act, the 35th anniversary of the founding of ASPO, the 20th anniversary of the start of the journal, Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention (CEBP), and 1—the impact one person has on ending cancer. The main message of my talk is "You Are the Answer to Cancer" (Fig. 1).