Thomson Reuters
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
They're all giving a face to a new type of cancer treatment that uses the immune system to fight tumor cells, called immunotherapy.
And on Tuesday, billionaire Michael Bloomberg and other philanthropists announced plans to donate $125 million to Johns Hopkins University for a new institute devoted to immunotherapy cancer research.
Bloomberg, founder of the business and market news firm bearing his name and a former New York City mayor, and Sidney Kimmel, founder of Jones Apparel Group, have each agreed to donate $50 million. Another $25 million was contributed by more than a dozen supporters, Johns Hopkins said in a statement.
Vice President Biden, who has been tasked with leading a cancer moonshot initiative, hopes to combine government and private funding to advance research at a faster pace.
In an op-ed published Wednesday, Biden and Bloomberg wrote, "Our goal is to make a decade's worth of medical advances in the next five years. And with new institutions working together and new resources dedicated to the problem, we know we can finally gain the upper hand on a disease that has already robbed the world of far too much talent and love."
The Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will be at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore. It will draw on experts in cancer, immunology, genetics, microbiology and biomedical engineering.
Immunotherapy seeks to redirect patients' individual immune systems to target and destroy cancer cells. Former President Jimmy Carter, who was diagnosed with late-stage melanoma last year, received immunotherapy in addition to radiation therapy to get rid of his cancer. In December 2015, he was declared cancer-free, and has since stopped his treatment.
Research at the institute will focus on melanoma, colon, pancreatic, urologic, lung, breast, and ovarian cancers.
(Reuters reporting by Ian Simpson)