Biden betting life sciences can beat cancer
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Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
President Biden had a busy day in Boston Monday, first promoting how millions in infrastructure funds will improve transportation facilities like Logan Airport before announcing a major push to empower the life science industry to fight cancer.
Driving the news: Biden's first stop in Boston wasn't far from where Air Force One landed: Terminal E at Logan Airport, which is in line to receive $50 million in funding from the president's infrastructure law.
- The nearly 50-year-old international terminal will get a rehabilitated ticket area, gates and jetways under the massive spending bill.
- The terminal is also in line for new heating, energy efficiency upgrades and air conditioning equipment.
- "We're creating a modern terminal, worthy of America's City on a Hill," Biden said.
Details: White House officials say the project will create almost 6,000 jobs.
- Another $12 million will go toward fixing roadways at terminals A, C and E.
- 85 airports across the U.S. will receive $1 billion in funding under the law.
Leaving Logan, Biden's motorcade got to blow through the usually bumper-to-bumper Kosciuszko Circle between South Boston and Dorchester approaching Columbia Point and the JFK Library.
At the library dedicated to President John F. Kennedy, Biden touted an executive order he signed yesterday aiming to boost funding for the U.S. biotechnology industry and other industries he says could lead to vaccines to prevent certain cancers.
- The "cancer moonshot" and the new "Cancer Cabinet" aim to "turn more cancers from death sentences into chronic diseases people can deal with," Biden said.
The president likened his "bold, ambitious, and completely doable" plan to Kennedy's goal of putting a man on the moon.
- The "cancer moonshot" speech came on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's address which rallied the nation to land astronauts on the moon.
Worth noting: Biden was joined at the JFK Library by Renee Wegrzyn, the Boston-area scientist he intends to appoint to lead the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, for which Massachusetts is vying to become the headquarters.