Matt Might, the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute, delivered a keynote address to mark the national Biden Cancer Summit Friday.

In his speech, Might outlined the groundbreaking work that UAB and its Comprehensive Cancer Center are engaging in to identify and treat cancer, as well as the crucial work that must still be done.

“We can win the war on cancer, and we will,” Might proclaimed.

Watch:

“As far as the ‘War on Cancer’ goes, obviously we have a long way to go. But this is a war we can win… We will win it. And absolutely, UAB will,” Might concluded.

UAB and UAB’s School of Nursing hosted the Biden Cancer Summit event in Birmingham to coincide with the national summit taking place in Washington, D.C., and in cities around the country. The nationwide events are meant to draw attention to the progress doctors and scientists have made in treating cancer, and to highlight the work that still needs to take place.

Per a UAB press release, Might was a strategist from 2016-2018 in the Executive Office of the President in The White House. At The White House, he worked primarily on the Precision Medicine Initiative with both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Prior to this role, Might was a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical School. At Harvard, his research focused on rare disease discovery and diagnosis, and on the development of personalized therapeutics for rare disease.

At UAB, Might’s NIH and philanthropically funded research focuses on precision prevention, diagnosis and therapeutics across rare disease, cancer, and common/chronic conditions. A principal theme in his research is the use of computer and data science to enhance clinical and academic medicine.

Learn more about UAB’s Precision Medicine initiative — including more on Might’s fascinating journey from computer scientist to identifying and treating his son’s potentially fatal disease — by visiting UAB’s Precision Medicine website.

“We can win the war on cancer, and we will.” See @mattmight‘s inspirational and educational #Birmingham keynote address as part of today’s #BidenCancerSummit. The event was hosted @UABSON and included Dr. Eddy Yang with the @UABCancerCenter. https://t.co/e1RmrwDOzW pic.twitter.com/3SAQLgj0fC

— UAB (@UABNews) September 21, 2018

Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn