Biden is announcing $150 million in research grants as part of his 'moonshot' push to fight cancer

New Orleans: President Joe Biden is zeroing in on the policy goals closest to his heart now that he s no longer seeking a second term, visiting New Or...

New Orleans: President Joe Biden is zeroing in on the policy goals closest to his heart now that he's no longer seeking a second term, visiting New Orleans on Tuesday to promote his administration's "moonshot" initiative aiming at dramatically reducing cancer deaths.

The president and first lady Jill Biden toured medical facilities that receive federal funding to investigate cancer treatments at Tulane University, where researchers demonstrated using a piece of raw meat how they are working to improve scanning technology to quickly distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells during surgeries.

The pair then were to help announce $150 million in awards from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Those will support eight teams of researchers around the country working on ways to help surgeons more successfully remove tumors from people with cancer. It brings the total amount awarded by the agency to develop breakthrough treatments for cancers to $400 million.

Cancer surgery "takes the best surgeons and takes its toll on families,” Biden said. He said the demonstration of cutting-edge technology he witnessed would offer doctors a way to visualize tumors in real time, reducing the need for follow-on surgeries. "We’re moving quickly because we know that all families touched by cancer are in a race against time,” Biden said.

The teams receiving awards include ones from Tulane, Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Washington and Cision Vision in Mountain View, California.