President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden convened a meeting of representatives from various federal agencies working on the Cancer Moonshot initiative Sept. 13, where it was announced that $240 million will be made available to researchers and innovators this year for cancer-related projects. The additional investments will aim to accelerate new ways to prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer.
The following projects within the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which consider the importance of radiology and imaging in the mission of the Cancer Moonshot initiative, were also announced:
- The Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program will develop tools to detect cancers early, when they are most treatable, and produce innovative approaches to visualize cancer cells during surgery to improve patient outcomes. The PSI will pursue new treatment approaches and design devices that could deliver treatments directly to cancer cells to treat tumors more effectively.
- The Biomedical Data Fabric Toolbox for Cancer is a partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and other agencies to develop a cancer dataset; representing an effort to transform data accessibility across all medical domains. The initiative will ensure that knowledge gained through research is available to experts, and that delivering discovery and breakthroughs are available to patients sooner. This effort will pioneer prototype technologies capable of seamlessly searching cancer datasets to reveal opportunities for groundbreaking disease detection, prevention and treatment.
- ARPANET-H, a nationwide health innovation network, will bring cancer clinical trials to underserved communities and drive research progress by tackling pressing health challenges, including accelerating clinical trials for cancer and other diseases. The network will improve equity in access to innovative cancer interventions and accelerate the agency’s work to drive breakthroughs in preventing, detecting, and treating cancer and other diseases.
For more information, contact Katie Grady, American College of Radiology® Government Affairs Director.