Why A Joe Biden And Kamala Harris Led Administration Could Be A Big Boost For Cancer Research

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has chosen Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate. Much is being hurriedly written about their likely policies on major topics such as the economy, policing and healthcare, but the nomination is also making waves in a different community, one that focuses on people with cancer. This includes patients, healthcare professionals and researchers, hopeful that Biden and Harris might prioritize funding for and support for cancer research if elected in November, as they both have strong ties to the disease.

Harris’ mother was Dr Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer research scientist who moved to the University of California at Berkeley to pursue a doctorate after graduating from the University of Delhi age 19. Gopalan reportedly frequently took her children with her to her lab at the university, even getting them to help out by cleaning test tubes. Like many academic research scientists, Gopalan moved institutions throughout her career, spending time at McGill university in Montréal and the University of Illinois, before eventually moving back to California.

One of Gopalan’s most important research contributions was published in 1967 and involved figuring out how hormone receptors worked in relation to breast development and breast cancer. She was one of a team who found out that the hormone estrogen could bind to a receptor, a discovery which has led to a much greater understanding of breast cancers and laid an important foundation for the development of several successful therapies to treat the disease. Gopalan continued to work in breast cancer research, publishing numerous scientific discoveries before being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2008 and passing away in February 2009.

Joe Biden’s cancer advocacy is well documented after his eldest son Beau passed away from an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme aged 46 in 2015. Beau Biden was an attorney general in Delaware and in Joe Biden’s message to supporters following Harris’ appointment as vice presidential candidate, he reportedly credited Beau with introducing him to Harris.

After Beau’s death and after Biden left office, he set up the Biden Cancer Initiative with his wife, Dr Jill Biden. The initiative was a non-profit venture designed to continue the work of the Obama administration’s Cancer Moonshot, which Biden led while he was still in office. Rather than funding research directly, the organization worked to try and connect researchers, companies and patient groups to work together to drive forward advances more quickly.

“The power behind the initiative was tapping into the convening power of Joe Biden and Dr Biden, and bringing in people from across the spectrum from patient advocates, to researchers and academics to big pharma – getting everyone to the table at the same time,” said Catharine Young, PhD, former Senior Director of Science Policy for the Biden Cancer Initiative.

The initiative focused on several main areas to try and accelerate progress in cancer research by fundamentally changing the culture and infrastructure of systems. The projects included data sharing, data standardization, clinical trials, patient navigation, cancer prevention and access to care.

“On many occasions Joe and Dr Biden would convene with patients themselves to talk about issues – they really wanted to make sure the patient was at the center of everything that they did. The most crucial aspect of their job was to understand the patient perspectives and what the problems were and to take it back to us as a team to figure out what to do about it,” said Young, who is now Executive Director of the SHEPHERD Foundation, which is working to transform the rare cancer system.

The operations of the Biden Cancer Initiative were suspended in 2019 as it became clearer that Biden was likely to run for the democratic nomination and perceived conflicts of interest would arise. But Biden remains dedicated to cancer research and improving access to care for people with cancer.

“Beau’s death had such an impact on them and they had first-hand experience of the barriers that patients every day experience, for example not getting on a clinical trial, easy access to Beau’s data or getting his records transferred from one institution to another. Their lived experience of being parents of a person with cancer really solidified their desire to make fundamental changes to aim for a future where nobody has to go through what they did,” said Young.

Although personal experiences or ties to particular causes are no guarantees of translation into beneficial policy, if Biden and Harris win November’s election, cancer researchers and people with cancer have every reason to believe that the cause will be high up on the agenda for the new U.S. President and Vice President.

“I have no doubt he [Biden] will make positive changes for policy if he gets the presidency, this has been a long-time focus for him, including when he was in the Obama administration too. He absolutely understands how critical science is to the process and how critical funding is for science to be able to conduct the work required, he gets that. He also understands in order to see good research, people need to collaborate, so I think we will see a big shift in this too,” said Young.