WASHINGTON — Joe Biden talks a lot about the potential for “big data” to accelerate the fight against cancer. On Friday, he spent time learning about a model of that approach that’s already being put to work in Utah.
The star of the show in Salt Lake City, where the vice president led a panel discussion for his cancer “moonshot” effort at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, was the Utah Population Database. The database houses genealogical and historical health records for upwards of 8 million people, a one-of-a-kind medical resource.
About 200 active medical research projects are currently using the data stored there, the vice president said.
