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ARPA-H Biomedical Data Fabric Toolbox

ARPA-H seeks proposals to enhance the value extracted from biomedical research data

ARPA-H aims to advance next-generation software tools to synthesize and speed the use of health research data, with early use cases in cancer and a partnership with the National Cancer Institute.

The goal of creating a data fabric toolbox is to build a unified, consistent layer of data services that can work across many different systems and environments. Such a toolbox will help make research data easier to use, reduce effort for data integration, and enable new capabilities and models that can be applied across disciplines and generalized across disease domains.

Proposers are expected to set aggressive goals linked to one of the following four technical areas (TAs):

  • TA1: Automated data collection - TA1 should lower barriers to high-fidelity, timely, and automated data collection across labs and health record systems, in a privacy-protecting way.
  • TA2: AI-assisted curation - TA2 should prepare, connect, and harmonize multisource data for analysis at scale.
  • TA3: Intuitive exploration - TA3 should enable advanced, human-centered data exploration and dashboards for use by diverse researchers and decision-makers.
  • TA4: User testing to evaluate data usability - TA4 should evaluate the data fabric tools across researchers, clinicians, and patients to ensure the resulting tools and capabilities will be enthusiastically adopted.

TA5, which will integrate promising software solutions from TA1-3 to develop a federated data fabric capability, will be solicitated at a later date.

Protecting patient privacy while making comprehensive data accessible to the biomedical community is a key consideration of ARPA-H, which encourages proposals from computer science and biomedical research communities. ARPA-H anticipates that teaming will be necessary to achieve the goals of the project.

In partnership with the National Cancer Institute and Frederick National Lab (FNL), FNL is posting a solicitation for an integrated BDF Toolbox capability for cancer. Proposers with cancer research data expertise and an interest in developing an integrated capability in partnership with FNL are encouraged to apply through the FNL solicitation which can be found on their Business Opportunities page (Business Opportunities | Frederick National Laboratory (cancer.gov)).

Dates

Feedback on the draft solicitation was due on September 20, 2023. ARPA-H will hold a virtual Proposers’ Day on September 27, 2023. A final solicitation will be posted on September 29, 2023. Additional project-related questions should be directed to BDFToolbox@arpa-h.gov.

Special Notice

ARPA-H BDF Toolbox Special Notice

Abstract due date: October 6, 2023, 10:00 PM EDT

Virtual Proposers’ Day

Proposers’ Day: September 27, 2023, 2:00 - 4:00 PM EDT

Proposers' Day video

Teaming

ARPA-H anticipates that teaming will be necessary to achieve the goals of the Biomedical Data Fabric Toolbox. Prospective performers are encouraged to form teams with varied technical expertise to submit a research proposal. To facilitate this process, we have created a teaming page where prospective performers can share their profiles and learn more about other interested parties.

Teaming Page