Just down the street from Dorchester Bay City, President Joe Biden highlighted his mission to cut cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library last week, President Biden detailed a vision that included vaccines that could prevent cancer and molecular “zip codes” that could deliver drugs and gene therapies to the right place. He envisioned a blood test that could detect cancer early, and a single shot that could replace grueling chemotherapy treatments.
As part of the effort, President Biden announced that Dr. Renee Wegrzynwill be the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which will focus on innovation to push the limits of biomedical and health research. She’s currently the senior director of drug discovery at Ginkgo Bioworks, located in South Boston, just a mile north of the DBC site.
For organizations like ARPA-H to succeed in the President’s mission, it’s critical they incorporate voices who can bring new ideas to the table and consider practices like inclusive innovation, a national effort to increase the participation of minority business enterprises and minority-serving institutions.
Dorchester Bay City embodies the definition of inclusive innovation, ensuring unprecedented levels of participation by local residents as well as minority and women partners to help create a robust, ecologically sound, hub for businesses such as life sciences firms less than a mile from where President Biden delivered his “Cancer Moonshot” address.
“The DBC team is dedicated to bringing in exceptional local and diverse talent through the creation of innovative workforce training programs that can benefit the City, the Commonwealth and beyond,” said Jill Lacey Griffin, Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Accordia Partners.
Another factor driving DBC’s close connection to the life sciences community: Its proximity to UMass Boston, the most diverse research university in New England and the third most diverse university in the United States.
It was exciting, and a profound honor, to have the President visit our neighborhood, and it's inspiring for us to imagine how, over the next 25 years, Dorchester Bay City might be one of the places where the research and hard work happen to fulfill the vision of the Cancer Moonshot.