By Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) – President Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday that he is investing $150 million in new federal funding to develop technology to better help surgeons successfully remove cancerous tumors, the White House said.
The award, to be announced during a visit to New Orleans, is the latest infusion of cash into Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot,” a program led by the president and first lady that aims to reduce the U.S. cancer death rate by at least half by 2047.
Nearly two million Americans are newly diagnosed with solid tumor cancers every year and surgical removal is often the first step in their treatment, the White House said.
Next-generation microscopes and imaging technology hope to make these surgeries more effective, reducing the need for repeat surgeries and decreasing damage to healthy tissue, saving and prolonging lives, the White House said.
In its first two years, the administration invested more than $400 million to accelerate progress in preventing, detecting and treating cancer, the White House said.
The eight award recipients include Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington, according to the White House.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Miral Fahmy)
