Joe Biden, the former two-term vice president who headed a national Cancer Moonshot Task Force, will serve as keynote speaker at the May 23 ribbon cutting and dedication of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.
Limited tickets available
Employees, faculty and students of UNMC and Nebraska Medicine are welcome to vie for a ticket to attend the dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. Employees, faculty and students who send an e-mail to the UNMC events coordinator between now and 8 a.m. on Monday, May 22, will be placed in a drawing for one of the 100 available tickets for the event. People who receive tickets will be notified later that day with further details.
In addition, the UNMC community will have several opportunities to view the dedication and ribbon-cutting. They include:
- several viewing screens beneath the vehicle drop-off, on the west side of the Buffett Cancer Center;
- a livestream in the Durham Research Center Auditorium;
- desktops or mobile devices, as the event is being livestreamed, and;
- via Facebook Live on the UNMC, Nebraska Medicine and Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center accounts.
The event will begin at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, May 23, and should conclude around 3:15 p.m. Tours of the facility will be available to employees, faculty and students beginning about 30 minutes following the event. The livestream of the Tuesday ceremony will begin a half hour before the event. If you experience technical difficulties, call 402-559-8090.
There will be an open house for the public to tour the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center on Saturday, May 27, from 9 a.m. to noon.
“The former vice president is the perfect speaker to mark the momentum and excitement surrounding the opening of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center,” said UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
“We’re pleased that Mr. Biden will join us on one of the most significant days in our medical center’s history,” Dr. Gold said. “Mr. Biden led the White House Cancer Moonshot to enhance cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care and is now launching his own Biden Cancer Initiative. To have his participation in the dedication of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center is significant — especially for our community of researchers, health providers and patients. Like the Moonshot, this cancer center is uniquely designed to bolster the collaborations necessary to eliminate this disease.”
The former vice president’s son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015, at age 46. Joe Biden said he will spend the rest of his life fighting to eradicate the disease.
Nebraska Medicine CEO Daniel DeBehnke, M.D., M.B.A., said a speaker of Vice President Biden’s stature is indicative of how the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center is viewed in the cancer-fighting world.
“It is exciting to have the former vice president on campus,” Dr. DeBehnke said. “As the former head of the Cancer Moonshot, there are few who have a better holistic view of what we need to do in the future to fight cancer. His coming here is the ultimate stamp of approval that the future is now, and the future is here, at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.”
Unique in its design, the Buffett Cancer Center is the most fully integrated cancer center in the world, said Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. The 615,000-square-foot center, with hallways as long as football fields, puts clinical providers in close proximity with their research colleagues with the goal of more efficiently translating research to patient care.
“The goal of the Cancer Moonshot is to remove barriers to progress, and so it is fitting to have Joe Biden join us Tuesday as we dedicate a building that removes barriers and builds a sense of shared purpose among researchers, health care teams and patients,” Dr. Cowan said.