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SALT LAKE CITY — For Vice President Joe Biden, the White House's $1 billion initiative to cure cancer is as personal as it is public.
At a roundtable discussion with experts at the Huntsman Cancer Institute on Friday, Biden frequently invoked the memory of his son Beau, who died last year due to brain cancer.
"It's not about my son," Biden said. "It's about the knowledge I was able to gain firsthand going through two years of trying to save his life."
Biden's visit to the Huntsman Cancer Institute was part of what he called a "listening tour" of the nation's top cancer centers.
President Barack Obama tapped Biden in January to lead the White House's "moonshot" initiative to accelerate research on cancer and, eventually, to eliminate it.
The vice president was joined at the discussion by former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., whose parents founded the Huntsman Cancer Institute; Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Huntsman Cancer Institute CEO and Director Mary Beckerle; and Intermountain Healthcare President Charles Sorenson.
Earlier Friday, Biden visited the Family History Library, where he was presented with a five-volume genealogy of his family going back several hundred years.
He was greeted by Elder D. Todd Christofferson and Elder Ronald A. Rasband, both of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and former U.S. Sen. Gordon H. Smith of the Church's Quorum of the Seventy.
Biden called the gift an "enormous honor."
During the roundtable at the institute, discussion ranged from how to get scientists to share more data to Utah's reputation as a leader in genomics research.
Biden argued that cancer research is at a critical juncture — a point where advancements in genomics research and data collection are ready to be merged to provide entirely new ways of treating cancer.
He said his goal is to unite researchers in a concerted push to eliminate cancer — achieving in five years what might normally take 10.
"For the first time, we can see what the ultimate solution is going to look like, but whether we get there in 10 years or 50 years is going to depend on how we put it together," Biden said.
The Huntsman Cancer Institute is the steward of the Utah Population Database, the largest genetic database in the world.
For the first time, we can see what the ultimate solution is going to look like, but whether we get there in 10 years or 50 years is going to depend on how we put it together.
–Vice President, Joe Biden
Researchers have used the database — which contains more than 22 million genealogical records — to identify the genetic causes of certain cancers and develop targeted treatments for them.
University of Utah Health Care CEO Vivian Lee said Friday that the LDS Church is donating family histories of another 100 million people to the database.
"Yes, (the database) started in Utah," Lee said. "But actually it's really a national and almost international database."
At the discussion, cancer patients and family members also pushed Biden to focus on cancer prevention and early screening.
Of the 600,000 people who die every year from cancer — one person for every minute of every day — roughly half die from preventable cancers, according to the American Association for Cancer Research.
For others, such as breast cancer survivor Emma Houston, the disease is unavoidable.
Three of her aunts, her mother and her grandmother have had breast cancer. Last year, her daughter was also diagnosed with it.
Had she known there can be a genetic basis for cancer and that her family history was in a database, Houston said, her daughter's cancer could have been diagnosed "much earlier."
"I always think about, 'How can we take the ego out of it?'" Houston asked.
HCI researchers talking genetics with @VP Biden #CancerMoonshotpic.twitter.com/D8hcPmpmGs
— Huntsman Cancer Inst (@huntsmancancer) February 26, 2016
Rep. Jon Stanard, R-St. George, told Biden that his father went to doctors repeatedly to talk about symptoms that turned out to be stage 4 thyroid cancer.
Stanard said doctors missed his father's diagnosis for years.
"In some regards, it's tough not to blame doctors for missing something, but at the same time, you also have to understand they don't know what they don't know," Stanard said.
Several experts pressed Biden on expanding access to underserved populations, drawing on their experience serving patients in rural and frontier communities.
Audience member Lacey Harris, of the Northern Ute Tribe, asked Biden "not to leave us out."
Even with genetic research advancing rapidly, experts did not say how long they think it will take to find a cure for cancer.
Some have already questioned the White House's lofty ambitions and called the $1 billion commitment too modest in the world of biomedical research.
Biden said his role is to listen to what researchers need, tear down the red tape and then "get out of the way."
The phrase "moonshot" seems to suggest that researchers are taking an improbable swing at the problem instead of a methodical approach, he said.
But the science, Biden argued, is there.
What's needed, he argued, is a united push from scientists, doctors, patients and government officials to break down the final barriers to finding a cure.
"Every night when I went to bed, my prayer was, 'Just let (Beau) live long enough for the science to catch up, because I know it will catch up,'" Biden said. "I know it will catch up."
Contributing: Kieth McCord
Email: dchen@deseretnews.comTwitter: @DaphneChen_
