WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is creating a new federal task force to accelerate cancer research.
He's tapping Vice President Joe Biden to chair the effort.
Obama signed a presidential memo Thursday establishing the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. The memo says the goal is to double the rate of progress on treatment and prevention.
The Pentagon, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health are among about a dozen federal agencies involved. The group will submit a report to Obama at the end of December - just before Obama leaves office.
Biden announced last year, when he said he wouldn't run for president, that he would spend his final months in office working to cure cancer. His son Beau Biden died of brain cancer last year.