U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced in October that he would not be a part of the 2016 presidential race, choosing instead to find ways to fight cancer. "I believe we need a moon shot in this country to cure cancer. It's personal, but I know we can do this," Biden had said on Oct. 21 while announcing his decision not to run, reports ABC News.
Beau Biden, Biden's son and former Delaware attorney general, succumbed to cancer in May at the age of 46.
"Last month, (Joe Biden) worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources they've had in over a decade," President Barack Obama said during his State of the Union address, reports USA Today. "Tonight, I'm announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he's gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past 40 years, I'm putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we've all lost, for the family we can still save, let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all."
According to Biden, cancer research and therapies are "on the cusp of incredible breakthroughs," but science, data and research results are "trapped in silos, preventing faster progress and greater reach to patients. And the goal of this initiative - this 'Moonshot"' - is to seize this moment. To accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure, and to unleash new discoveries and breakthroughs for other deadly diseases," Biden wrote on Medium.
"Every single family in America has been affected by cancer," Biden said, according to ABC News. "It's the largest killer in the world, and we are so close, so incredibly close, on finding cures and fundamental changes and making it a chronic disease in many cases and not a - not a death sentence. The Republicans have already reached out. This is a place where there's really common ground. I think we can generate a consensus here. You have 75 percent of the people who have cancer of some form, and they never get to go to the great research hospitals."
Biden is scheduled to participate in meetings at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center later this week, said the White House.
