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By Natalie Venegas
Weekend Reporter
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President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a new $150 million research grant initiative as part of the "Cancer Moonshot" program.
The "Cancer Moonshot" program began under the Obama administration in 2016 with the goal of drastically reducing cancer fatalities in the United States. Biden, who withdrew from the 2024 presidential race last month, has emphasized that promoting the "Cancer Moonshot" is one of his top priorities for his remaining time in office.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Biden will be accompanied by first lady Jill Biden on Tuesday during a tour of medical facilities in New Orleans and will later officially announce the $150 million in grants awarded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) at Tulane University. Details of the new plan were released by the White House ahead of the trip.
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The grants will support eight research teams from institutions like Tulane, Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University and others, all of which are focused on improving the surgical removal of tumors for cancer patients.
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Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the U.S. with the American Cancer Society predicting 2 million new cases and over 600,000 deaths this year alone.
Biden, however, remains optimistic as he continues to move towards the ambitious goal he previously made in 2022 of reducing cancer deaths by 50 percent over the next 25 years—a challenge experts say is achievable with sustained investment and innovation, the AP reported.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email on Tuesday for comment.
According to the AP, Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society, praised the new initiative while highlighting the potential to drastically lower cancer mortality rates if current innovations are widely accessible.
"If all innovation ended today and we could just get people access to the innovations that we know about right now, we think we could reduce cancer mortality by another 20 to 30 percent," Knudsen said.
The Biden administration's renewed efforts for the "Cancer Moonshot" program also includes more focus on making cancer care more accessible, including Medicare's expanded coverage for essential screenings, Knudsen told the AP.
Biden's dedication to the cause is personal. Both he and Jill Biden have faced their own cancer battles, and his son Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015.
The president's efforts have also drawn widespread praise. According to the AP, Jon Retzlaff, the chief policy officer at the American Association for Cancer Research, acknowledged the administration's success in rallying support across the public and private sectors.
"The No. 1 thing is for us to see robust, sustained and predictable annual funding support for the National Institutes of Health. And, if we see that through NIH and through the National Cancer Institute, the programs that have been created through the cancer moonshot will be allowed to continue," Retzlaff told the AP.
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