President Joe Biden is using his remaining time in office to tackle cancer as he’ll travel to New Orleans with first lady Jill Biden to promote his administration’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
On Tuesday, President Biden will announce $150 million in funding for hospitals “to develop technologies that will allow surgeons to provide more successful tumor-removal surgeries for people facing cancer.”
This is an issue that is deeply personal for the president. His son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer at the age of 46 in 2015.
The following year, President Barack Obama launched the Cancer Moonshot with then-Vice President Biden at the helm. It has a lofty goal to reduce the amount of cancer deaths by half in 25 years. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in America, second only to heart disease.
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The administration also wants to improve the lives of those who are battling cancer, who have survived cancer, and help family members who are supporting loved ones with cancer.
Where the $150 million will go
The White House is allocating funds for eight participating university health systems.
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Dartmouth and the University of Illinois are receiving some of the largest grants, upwards of $30 million. The University of Illinois is using those funds to invest in new microscopes and other tools to help identify microscopic cancer remnants inside a patient.
