Prostate Cancer

Even before the cuts were announced, cancer scientists and activists began a campaign of op-ed articles, e-mail alerts and public events.

Cancer groups launched lobbying of the House with a rally Tuesday, and they are planning to deluge representatives with calls and e-mail as a vote nears, said Wendy Selig, vice president for legislative affairs at the American Cancer Society.

They have crafted a message to make the point that cancer patients will be hurt just as emerging discoveries of therapies that target a patient's cells or spur the body's immune system portend improved treatments.

"We're not just saying we need more" money, said Ellen V.

Sigal, founder and chairwoman of Friends of Cancer Research in Washington.

"We're talking more tangibly about what's been accomplished and what's at stake." Beyond the loss of research grants, scientists fear a longer-term effect: the shift of talented young researchers to different work, because that's where the money is.

One scientist who made such a move is Dr.

Stuart Lutzker, who went to Genentech in San Francisco from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

Lutzker said his primary motivation was to work on drug development, rather than basic science, but that money for research was a factor.

The intense competition for academic research grants, he said, was difficult.

"One thing that makes in...

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