Cancer has touched nearly every family in America, including ours.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 27, 2023
That s why Jill and I believe so deeply in the Cancer Moonshot, which will be transformational for Americans and people around the world.
Together, we are moving toward a world where cancer loses its power.
The Biden administration announced a new multi-million dollar funding opportunity for research into precision surgical treatments as a part of the Cancer Moonshot initiative, calling the eradication of cancer "a goal worthy of our great nation."
"Harnessing the power of innovation is essential to achieving our ambitious goal of turning more cancers from death sentences to treatable diseases and — in time — cutting the cancer death rate in half," President Joe Biden said in a statement. "[W]hen the U.S. government invests in innovation, we can achieve breakthroughs that would otherwise be impossible, and save lives on a vast scale. ARPA-H follows in that tradition of bold, urgent innovation."
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The program comes from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, a project of the National Institutes of Health established in March 2022 through bipartisan legislation to prevent, detect, and treat cancer and other chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease.
According to the NIH, surgical treatments for cancer work best with solid, localized tumors and are not typically possible to treat metastasized cancers, or those that have spread throughout the body. In surgical intervention, distinguishing between healthy and cancerous cells can be difficult, potentially causing damage to healthy cells, blood vessels, and nerves.
The ARPA-H is soliciting research proposals for devices and treatments to better conduct selective surgery treatments by better making the distinction between healthy and cancerous cells. The agency anticipates multiple grant proposals competing for the funding.
Cancer has touched nearly every family in America, including ours.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 27, 2023
That’s why Jill and I believe so deeply in the Cancer Moonshot, which will be transformational for Americans and people around the world.
Together, we are moving toward a world where cancer loses its power.
"As surgical oncologists know, removing cancer can be incredibly challenging," Biden said. "Determining how exactly to operate to excise all cancerous cells, while saving healthy cells and protecting critical organs, nerves, and blood vessels, is a huge challenge. ... Researchers and innovators across the country are pioneering new techniques and technologies to make cancer removal surgeries more precise, accurate, and achievable."
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Biden in May nominated Monica Bertagnolli to lead the NIH as the agency attempts to recover from the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bertagnolli is the current director of the National Cancer Institute at the NIH and was ostensibly chosen for her leadership in the Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to cut cancer deaths in half by 2047 and eventually eliminate cancer. The move to do so has been blocked by Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, who has promised to withhold key healthcare nominations until Biden proposes a "comprehensive" plan to diminish the costs of prescription drugs.
Cancer rates have decreased by 27% since 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2020, there were 602,350 cancer deaths in the United States and approximately 10 million cancer deaths worldwide.