Biden announces $150 million investment in new cancer surgery technologies

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden awarded $150 million in Cancer Moonshot funds Tuesday to develop new technologies for tumor surgery "to make cancer removal more precise."

"Today we are announcing $150 million of ARPA-H funding for some of the nation's cutting-edge cancer research institutions. That includes right here at Tulane University," Biden told those attending the event.

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to New Orleans to announce the funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which will go to support eight teams pursuing cutting-edge technologies that are part of the agency's Precision Surgical Intervention program.

"These projects are working to improve key aspects of the surgical experience from improving surgeons' ability to visualize important structures like blood vessels and nerves throughout surgery, to developing next-generation microscopes and imaging technology that help remove all cancerous cells in one surgery," the White House said in a statement earlier Tuesday.

"We just met with one of your research teams and saw 3-D views of tumors. It's incredible," Biden said. "It's a road map doctors can follow during surgery to remove cancerous cells and protect vital organs, nerves and blood vessels."

The teams that will benefit from the awards include researchers from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; Rice University in Houston; Tulane University in New Orleans; the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University of Washington in Seattle and Cision Vision, in Mountain View, Calif.

During his speech, Biden reminded the audience, "I launched the Moonshot when I was Vice President of the United States," as he added, "One of the most devastating words a person can hear is 'cancer.'"

Biden also opened-up about his feelings before he underwent brain surgery decades ago for "a couple of cranial aneurysms they had to take care of in nine-hour operations" as he told his neurosurgeon, "Just get it done."

"When I ran for president in 2020, I set-up ARPA-H, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health," Biden said. "I wanted something that does nothing but focus on cancer."

Biden said through Cancer Moonshot, "We tried to break down the silos, so information was available to everybody."

"A year ago ARPA-H set its sights on a big idea calling on researchers and innovators to pioneer new techniques and technologies to make cancer removal more precise. Imagine cancer surgery that removes all the tumor the first time without harming health cells."

"The funding we announced today will help get these tools into operating rooms to visualize tumors right away instead of having to wait for days and weeks and maybe reopen the patient to go back in," Biden added.

The Biden administration said ARPA-H has invested more than $400 million since its inception to fast-track progress on how to prevent, detect and treat cancer. Biden reignited his Cancer Moonshot initiative two years ago. The initiative seeks to cut the cancer death rate in half by 2047.