Biden to tour labs, meet cancer researchers at Penn

Vice President Biden is scheduled to spend part of Friday afternoon at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center, the first stop on his quest for the United States to cure cancer. President Obama announced the new "Moon Shot" mission during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, comparing it with John F. Kennedy's 1961 declaration to Congress that the nation would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.Biden's 3 p.m. visit includes a tour of laboratories and a roundtable discussion with researchers at the Smilow Center for Translational Research and the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, both 3400 Civic Center Blvd. The events are not open to the public but are likely to cause some disruption.

In an internal e-mail Thursday afternoon, Garry Scheib, CEO of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, told employees that parts of the building would be emptied for security reasons from 11 a.m. through evening. "In addition, the Secret Service will temporarily close roadways near our campus to allow for secure transport of the Vice President," Scheib wrote.

- Don Sapatkin