Jill Biden in New Orleans: First lady meets cancer researchers, stops by book festival

First lady Jill Biden touched down in New Orleans on Friday in her first official visit to the city, praising the work of staff at the Louisiana Cancer Research Center and stressing the commitment of her husband's administration to preventing, detecting and “ending cancer as we know it.”

Her remarks followed a 40-minute tour of the cancer center, adjacent to Interstate 10 in the medical district, on a visit designed to highlight the importance of investing in cancer research and to mark National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

Addressing a room full of researchers, health care providers, elected officials and civic leaders, Biden recalled sister Jan’s difficult battle with lymphoma and the stem cell therapy that saved her life.

“We were terrified of losing her, but even as I held her hand and my breath through doctor visit after doctor visit, I found hope in the fact that researchers like you were working tirelessly to find the best, most effective treatments,” Biden said.

She noted that New Orleans and Louisiana have some of the highest cancer rates in the United States.

“Cancer changes everyone it touches, and, in some ways it touches us all,” Biden said. “This community knows that more than most. So many families here in New Orleans have lost loved ones to the disease, and I know that is why you are here and why you do the work you do.”

Investing in cancer research is part of the federal government's "cancer moonshot," a bipartisan policy initiative created during the Obama administration and reignited by President Joe Biden in 2022. Its goal is to cut cancer death rates by at least 50% over the next 25 years.

The Louisiana Cancer Research Center is a consortium of four local research and medical institutions:

• Tulane University Health Sciences Center
• LSU Health Sciences Center
• Ochsner Health
• Xavier University.

Its mission is to reduce cancer in Louisana and across the Gulf South.  

The visit was Biden’s first to Louisiana as first lady, though she is no stranger to New Orleans. Her daughter, Ashley Biden, went to Tulane University in the early 2000s, and Biden joked that as a Tulane mom she would “sneak down” to check on her because, “You never know what’s going on. It’s just too much fun down here.”

Biden was accompanied by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, and his wife, Laura Cassidy, both physicians; U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans; Mayor LaToya Cantrell; and Louisiana state Rep. Delisha Boyd of Algiers.

Afterward, she made an unannounced stop across town at Tulane for the New Orleans Book Festival. Accompanied by former Mayor Mitch Landrieu, infrastructure chief in the Biden administration, and festival co-chairs Walter Isaacson and Cheryl Landrieu, who is married to the former mayor, Biden snuck in late to a panel on historic fiction featuring authors Geraldine Brooks, Sadeqa Johnson and Katy Simpson Smith.

"How exciting to come and listen to authors and what they're writing about and how they get their ideas," Biden said in short remarks. "For me, it's a dream come true because I hear so many political speeches so this is so refreshing."

Targeting viruses 

Biden, a teacher and college professor, has long been a supporter of educational and health causes.

Her visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center was the latest of several stops she has made in the year since her husband’s administration reignited the cancer moonshot. She has traveled the country and the world to hear from cancer patients and their loved ones, as well as researchers, physicians, nurses and patient navigators.

The center's president and CEO, Dr. Joseph Ramos, greeted Biden and the other elected officials, taking them on a tour of the center with two stops.

At a laboratory where researchers are studying cancer-causing viruses, which account for some 15% to 20% of all cancers, Dr. Erik Flemington, professor of cancer research at Tulane University Medical Center, explained that the research focuses on identifying weaknesses in the viruses, which could be targeted with vaccines or other therapies.

At a presentation with nurses and physicians who are collaborating virtually on clinical trials with partner institutions in smaller cities, such as Gulfport, Mississippi,  Eileen Mederos, clinical trials network manager at the LSU Stanley Scott Cancer Center, told Biden the institutions collaborate virtually in their review of patients’ electronic health records and decide who might be eligible for new drug trials, then work to get those patients into treatment.

Only 2% to 4% of patients who are eligible for the trials typically participate, Mederos said. Biden said she would like to see more patients take advantage of the opportunities.

In recent months, the Biden administration's cancer initiative has announced more than 25 new programs, policies and resources to address five areas:

• Closing the cancer screening gap
• Understanding and addressing environmental exposure
• Decreasing the effect of preventable cancers
• Bringing cutting edge research to patients and communities
• Supporting patients and caregivers.