FACT SHEET: Vice President Biden Launches Open Access Data Resource as Part of Cancer Moonshot

Making a decade’s worth of progress in five years in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer – the goal of the Cancer Moonshot launched by President Barack Obama in his 2016 State of the Union Address and led by Vice President Joe Biden – will take all resources possible, and data is a particularly valuable one. In support of making research data freely accessible, the Vice President will visit the University of Chicago to mark the public release of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Genomic Data Commons (GDC), a first-of-its-kind public data platform for storing, analyzing, and sharing genomic and associated clinical data on cancer.

The GDC creates a foundational system for broad sharing and analysis of tumor genome sequences (the DNA unique to cancer cells), which is critical for advancing the field of precision medicine and improving the care of cancer patients, and is designed with appropriate privacy and security protections. By providing open access to large volumes of data to advance progress in cancer (with appropriate patient consent), the GDC continues the Administration’s legacy on opening up data, particularly to support health.