Vice-president announces deal to share data from Australian patients with researchers around the world
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, says there is a need for a new “Manhattan Project” against cancer as he announced a deal to share data from Australian patients with researchers around the world.
Biden, on the first official day of a four-day visit to Australia, opened the $1bn Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Melbourne on Sunday and shared memories of his son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015.
“We all have reasons to be in this fight,” he told the crowd. “What you’re doing here is profound, it has an impact in every corner of the world.”
Biden, who is leading the so-called “moonshot” attempt to accelerate cancer research, compared the work required to beat cancer to the research effort that produced the atomic bomb.
“I almost wish we hadn’t called it the moonshot,” he said. “It really is more like the Manhattan Project, it really is about collaboration in a way that hasn’t happened before.”
Under three memorandums of understanding signed with Australian state and federal governments, 50,000 Australian and 8000 US cancer patients will have their genetic data sent to researchers.
Continue reading at Joe Biden urges ‘Manhattan Project’ to fight cancer while on Australian tour
