Things I have in mind are things like Sean Parker's immunotherapy moonshot project or hospitals like St Judes.
Thanks!
I'd also look out for efforts that will or may seek to privatize their outputs. (E.g. the increasing role of such in much university research.) In this case, as much because resultant costs may withhold treatment from many. Also because such private interest tends to sale-able product over fundamental research.
Not cancer, and I haven't followed up to confirm my suspicion. But the recent news about Merc having a "100% effective" Ebola vaccine? IIRC, that comes out of Canadian government or government-funded research that was sold off a few years ago to Merc for a relative pittance.
Guess where your dollars should go. And also, don't let politicians trade the fruits of such to their business cronies. Not without controls to ensure public benefit shares equal or greater weight with/than private profit.
Also if anyone is looking to donate to a charity that gives 100%, aka a pass-through charity, I started one for my friend and his family last year[1], as they have an unknown genetic disease which has symptoms related to ALS, Muscular Distrophy, and several other symptoms.
While this does not directly answer you question, a prize for the heretics would be good. Perhaps Barry Marshal or Robin Warren would run it; they faced massive criticism for their work with H. Pylori before it became mainstream.
Check out the Genomic Data Commons as well to see partial results from these efforts. There's a nice article about it too at http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2017/Canc...
I have been disappointed in my ability to give to specific cancers like leukemia, though, which I'm guessing is similar to what you are finding (focused giving for specific types of research or specific diseases)
Cancer research attracts a huge amount of funding so the ROI of donations is much lower (i.e there's no low hanging fruit) than less common diseases.