CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) – Duke Cancer Institute, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Comprehensive Cancer Center are hosting a regional summit in Chapel Hill Wednesday.

North Carolina’s federally designated cancer centers were selected to host the National Cancer Moonshot regional summit in Chapel Hill.

The purpose is to highlight how the institutions are working together with a shared goal to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection and treatment.

“It’s becoming clear that cancer advances are going to come through team efforts,” said Lisa Carey, Distinguished Professor Breast Cancer Research at UNC’s Lineberger Center. “The biology is complex, the clinical issues are equally complex and you can’t do it by yourself.”

The effort is part of Vice President Joe Biden’s update on the National Cancer Moonshoot Initiative, brief presentations about innovative research being conducted at the three cancer centers, and a panel discussion with the centers’ directors: Boris Pasche, MD, PhD, Wake Forest Baptist; Michael B. Kastan, MD, PhD, Duke Cancer Institute; and Norman E. Sharpless, MD, UNC Lineberger.

Biden addressed the group over live broadcast.

Dr. Carey said, “We’re all here to figure out how to do it best and how to deliver on what the Vice President would like for us to do, which fits with what we want to do anyway and what we’ve been trying to do for many years.”

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Carl Fox and Dr. Barbara Rimer, dean of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health will also be among those providing comments.

The ultimate goal of the $1 billion initiative is to eliminate cancer as we know it.