During the State of the Union address Monday night, President Obama announced that he was entrusting Vice President Joe Biden with leading a national mission to find a cure for cancer.
Biden's son, Beau, died in 2015 from brain cancer, and on his Medium page, Biden said fighting cancer is "personal for me." There are several areas of research and care that "could be revolutionary," he said, and the goal of this initiative is to "seize the moment. To accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure, and to unleash new discoveries and breakthroughs for other deadly diseases."
The plan is twofold — to increase public and private resources to fight cancer, and to free data and research results from "silos," bringing cancer fighters together to "share information and end cancer as we know it." Over the next year, Biden plans to lead the effort to "target investment, coordinate across silos, and increase access to information for everyone in the cancer community." Biden said he knows the world will come together to find a cure and a new generation of scientists will be inspired to "pursue new discoveries and the bounds of human endeavor."
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