SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Vice President Joe Biden meets with top cancer researchers in Seattle
Mar 21, 2016, 11:37 AM | Updated: 9:45 pm
Vice President Joe Biden met with Seattle's top cancer experts to find out what barriers they face in developing breakthrough cancer treatments. The visit is part of a national listening tour to speed up cancer research. (AP file photo)
(AP file photo)
Can we end cancer as we know it? That was Vice President Joe Biden’s goal as he met with leading cancer researchers Monday at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
It’s part of a national tour in which Biden is trying to determine what the biggest barriers are to developing better treatments, and even cure the disease.
This comes after President Barack Obama’s proposal during January’s State of the Union speech to spend $1 billion dollars for a new initiative to fight cancer.
Vice President Biden has become the face of that effort since losing his son, Beau, to brain cancer at the age of 46, saying he was devastated he couldn’t do more for his son.
Part of today’s meeting was a round table to discuss putting together a road map to combat cancer, with the goal of doubling the rate of progress, getting researchers to share data, and identifying bureaucratic hurdles to clear.
.@VP Biden says we need to share data, use more super computer resources to find trends… pic.twitter.com/Y43ffSObHu
— Jillian Raftery (@JillianRaftery) March 21, 2016
