Joe Biden decries 'cancer politics' in kick-off of 'moonshot' to cure disease

The vice-president said he would push for more funding and use his influence to 'break down silos' to cure the disease, which took his son's life last year

Vice-president Joe Biden officially began his "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 that he says are holding back progress.

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.