Barack Obama’s final State of the Union speech, delivered last week, did not follow the script of previous speeches as a laundry list of things a president wants to accomplish in the coming year.

Obama was partly attempting to counter the negative rhetoric from Republicans presidential candidates claiming the country is in terrible mess because of the current administration’s policies.

As with every presidential speech, fact checkers found evidence of some spinning to put the president’s record in the best light. For instance, Obama talked about the unemployment rate coming down dramatically, but he didn’t mention the workforce participation rate, which is near a record low.

Similarly, Obama boasted about the United States shifting from an energy importer to the worlds largest producer of oil and natural gas. But he did not mention that technological advances such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal driller were responsible for the changing energy picture.

Fact checkers clarified a few other statements, some of which were simply rejected by many Republicans. That’s Washington’s partisan climate — something that Obama also addressed.

One of the rare moments in Obama’s speech that drew applause from both sides of the aisle was his declaration of a new war on cancer. He asked listeners to imagine the United States being the country that cures cancer.

Obama said he was appointing Vice President Joe Biden to steer the renewed war on cancer. Those in the Capitol chamber responded with applause. Biden is widely respected and liked on both sides of the aisle, and he lost his 46-year-old son, Beau, to brain cancer last year.

It’s clearly personal to Biden. And given that most families have dealt with the pain of a cancer diagnosis, it’s probably personal to nearly every member of Congress — and should receive bipartisan support for a renewed federal push and presumably some additional funding to reduce cancer deaths.

But when Obama went a step further, recalling President John Kennedy’s challenge, standing 55 years ago at the same podium, to put a man on the moon in a decade, he caught the attention of cancer researchers, scientists and oncologists, some of whom later said Obama oversimplified the challenge.

When Obama, or anyone, talks about curing cancer, the medical community’s response is that cancer is not one disease to be cured. There are more than 100 different cancers affecting different parts of the body and often responding to treatments in different ways for different patients. Great progress has been made in fighting certain cancers, but others remain frustratingly resistant to treatment, and fatal.

Still, Obama might be right to propose a new push from the federal government.

Recent advances in genetics and customized treatments that are designed based on genomic testing of the patient’s tumor have been making headlines in recent months.

Biden says a big part of his effort will focus on coordinating and sharing information from government and private sector researchers as well as corporations and those involved in clinical trials.

There very well could be more breakthroughs in the next few years, and a renewed focus with more money and Biden’s full attention and energy could accelerate progress. Still, medical experts warn against misunderstanding the president’s words, to believe there is a silver bullet, a single cure for cancer.

Curing cancer, or cancers, is more difficult than Kennedy’s moon shot challenge. Cancer can be seen as many moons, each requiring a different trajectory and different rocket system.