MD Anderson honors Biden with new cancer research chair

HOUSTON -- MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, is creating an endowed chair in recognition of Vice President Joe Biden's late son Beau, a former patient at the hospital.

Hospital officials tell the Houston Chronicle they plan to hire a distinguished neuro-oncologist for the Beau Biden Chair for Brain Cancer Research, which will be formally announced at a gala dinner Thursday celebrating MD Anderson's 75th anniversary.

MD Anderson provost Dr. Ethan Dmitrovsky says the new position will "address an unmet medical need to develop advances in brain cancer biology and therapy."

Beau Biden died of glioblastoma, the most common brain tumor type, in May 2015 at age 46.

Dmitrovsky says a recipient of the Biden Chair should be identified in the next few months.