08.15.24

Durbin, Duckworth Announce $32.6 Million In Federal Funding For Cancer Research At University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

SPRINGFIELD - U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today announced $32.6 million in federal funding for cancer research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This funding, through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Precision Surgical Interventions program, will go towards inventing new imaging techniques to enhance cancer treatments by allowing surgeons to remove all microscopic cancer cells that remain before the end of procedures. In its first two years, ARPA-H has advanced the Biden-Harris Administration’s Cancer Moonshot goals and has invested more than $400 million to fast-track progress on how cancer is prevented, detected, and treated.

“Serious federal investment in medical research pushes our society forward, bringing us new treatments for the conditions that impact so many American families,” said Durbin. “Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, Congress helped to establish the new ARPA-H agency to accelerate research projects for complex diseases. The University of Illinois, a world-class research institution, will make good use of this federal funding to make devastating diseases like cancer more treatable.”

“Investing in our world-renowned medical research facilities and institutions plays a critical role in the pursuit to end cancer for good,” Duckworth said. “I will keep working with Senator Durbin to make sure of our state’s health and research institutions have the federal support they need to continue improving cancer research, expanding access to treatment programs and providing reliable care to families across Illinois.”

Durbin has long been a strong advocate for robust medical research.  His legislation, the American Cures Act, would provide annual budget increases of five percent plus inflation at America’s top four biomedical research agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense Health Program, and the Veterans Medical and Prosthetics Research Program.  Thanks to Durbin’s efforts to increase medical research funding, Congress has provided NIH with a 60 percent funding increase over the past nine years.

-30-