ARPA-H Project Awardees
The ARPA-H Mission Office Innovative Solutions Openings (ISOs) and Open Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) provide funding for research that aims to improve health outcomes across a wide range of patient populations, communities, diseases, and conditions. These projects focus on transformative ideas for health research breakthroughs or technological advancements.
Awards made from the ISOs and Open BAA are generally in the form of contractual agreements. Exact award amounts are dependent upon meeting milestones typical of the ARPA-H process. As of March 2024, ARPA-H is no longer accepting submissions for the Open BAA solicitation, but ARPA-H will continue to review and consider solution summaries and proposals submitted under the Open BAA before it closed. Currently, ARPA-H will primarily use Program-Specific and Mission Office ISOs to advertise and accept submissions for its programs and projects.
ARPA-H is pleased to announce the following awardees:
THOR: Targeted Hybrid Oncotherapeutic Regulation
In the United States alone, over 19,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2024. An effective treatment could save over 8,000 American lives each year, yet like many solid tumors, ovarian cancer does not respond effectively to current immunotherapies. A revolutionary approach in the fight against ovarian cancer has emerged thanks to the convergence of several technological and medical innovations. This new effort, called Targeted Hybrid Oncotherapeutic Regulation (THOR), will create a compact device designed to trigger the immune system against tumors. The device will be implanted in proximity of the tumor and will house specialized cells responsible for producing and delivering therapeutic molecules. These molecules will activate the immune system both locally around the tumor site and throughout the body. Additionally, the device will incorporate advanced sensors to detect and monitor biomarkers of cancer. The integration of these two components in a single device will enable precise delivery of therapeutic doses tailored to each patient’s needs.
CODA: Mapping the Cancer and Organ Degradome Atlas to Unlock Synthetic Biomarkers for Multi-Cancer Early Detection
For most tumor types, there are currently no effective diagnostic tests for detecting most cancers at the earliest stages, when tumors are still localized and most responsive to treatment. Ongoing efforts that focus on native tumor-shed biomarkers face significant challenges, as these markers are often found in vanishingly small quantities in blood or other fluids. The CODA (Cancer and Organ Degradome Atlas) platform uses cutting-edge synthetic biology and cell engineering technologies to catalog cellular profiles unique to diseased cancer cells and leverages them to build bioengineered sensors that can be deployed inside the body to hunt for malignant cells. These biosensors use unique metabolic changes in tumor cells to drive the release of synthetic biomarkers that can reach high enough levels in biofluids to enable earlier cancer detection. This technology has the potential to produce a highly precise, accurate, and cost-effective test for multi-cancer early detection (MCED) that can identify common cancers earlier, when treatment can be most effective, and streamline clinical intervention when tumors are still small.
SPIKEs: Programmable Scalable Therapeutics for Immune-directed Cancer-killing
Cancer immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s own immune system to attack tumor cells, holds great potential. However, this therapy is currently hampered by very high costs, long and involved preparation processes, and frequent inefficacy against solid tumors. The University of Missouri’s Synthetic Programmable bacteria for Immune-directed Killing in tumor Environments (SPIKEs) project aims to develop a new class of living cancer immunotherapy that that can effectively address these limitations. The SPIKEs platform utilizes genetically programmable bacteria designed to sense tumor-associated metabolites as an exquisitely precise homing mechanism and then deliver therapeutic payloads that activate immune-directed killing of solid tumor cells without the need for the long and costly processes currently used. Bacterial therapeutics carrying programmable genetic circuitry that allows safe tissue targeting, on-demand activation and clearance, and multiple therapeutic functions – including immune cell recruitment, activation, and targeting – represent an innovative, scalable, cost-effective, and accessible treatment modality for cancer.
CUREIT: Curing the Uncurable via RNA-Encoded Immunogene Tuning
More than 25 million Americans currently live with autoimmune disease, and almost two million are projected to be diagnosed with cancer in 2023. Immune dysregulation is an underlying component of not only cancer and autoimmune diseases, but also infectious diseases, transplant rejection, and other common medical conditions. Current methods of immune modulation used to treat and mitigate these conditions are often expensive or not completely effective. Curing the Uncurable via RNA-Encoded Immunogene Tuning (CUREIT) aims to address immune dysregulation by directly programming immune cell function. Advances in gene-encoded technology will be leveraged to develop a platform capability able to both enhance protective immune responses as well as modulate insufficient or ineffective immune profiles. CUREIT seeks to develop a disease-agnostic toolbox of methods and technologies, including the in vivo delivery of mRNA-based drugs, cell targeting lipid nanoparticles, and ex vivo modulation of immune cells. This technology has the potential to make significant advancements towards managing or eliminating many diseases and conditions affecting all ages and demographics, including diseases that are currently untreatable.