Biden launches cancer initiative

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA

Vice President Joe Biden launched a “moonshot” initiative Friday to hasten a cure for cancer, aiming to use his final year in office to break down barriers in the medical world he says are holding back progress on eradicating the dreaded disease.

Biden chose Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia as his venue to call attention to the institute’s pioneering efforts on immunotherapy, in which a patient’s own immune system is deployed against cancer cells. After touring the facility’s Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, Biden sat down with doctors, researchers and academics to discuss recent advances.