With ‘Cancer Moonshot’ announcement, Biden turns to causes most important to him in final months in office

President Joe Biden’s first public event planned since his exit from the 2024 race last month marks a cause close to home: Announcing a major financial award from the cancer-curing policy arm he created in the wake of his son Beau Biden’s death.

President Joe Biden’s first public event planned since his exit from the 2024 race last month marks a cause close to home: Announcing a major financial award from the cancer-curing policy arm he created in the wake of his son Beau Biden’s death. The “Cancer Moonshot” program, founded while Biden was vice president and bolstered with billions in new funding since 2022, aims to provide cutting-edge research to halve the number of cancer deaths in the coming decades. On Tuesday, Biden will highlight $150 million in new research awards to eight organizations, including $23 million to Tulane University, the backdrop for the announcement. As the president concludes his single term in office, the White House – including Vice President Kamala Harris – is working to disburse as much funding as allowable under current programs, with uncertainty looming in November and beyond. The focus is on unleashing funds through Biden’s signature infrastructure, semiconductor and clean energy legislation. Officials expect Harris to lean into the laws that have sent trillions of dollars into the economy, especially the areas where she played a personal role, as she crafts her own economic platform, which is set to be released later this week. Harris, they note, advocated for lead pipe funding and high-speed internet deployment – and personally authored the legislation on clean school buses that ended up being part of the infrastructure law. While Biden has passed the baton to Harris on the campaign trail, he’s focusing the twilight of his five-decade career in public service on causes most personal to him. Cancer research holds “immense importance” to the president, one aide said, as his senior team works to amplify his work over the last three and a half years and cement his legacy. The Cancer Moonshot has received $4 billion from Congress and awarded $400 million to outside entities since it was jumpstarted in 2022 – a sizable budget for a single policy, but a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars of new government spending the Biden administration has ushered in.