The Big Question

What if we could make biomedical research faster and more rigorous? 

The Problem

• The human body is incredibly complex. Some of the most devastating illnesses people experience—from neurodegenerative to chronic autoimmune conditions—involve intricate interactions among different body systems, molecules, genes, and external factors. Meaningful advances require a multifaceted, systematic approach flexible and wide-ranging enough to mirror the complexity of nature. 
• Yet, most biomedical research takes place across fragmented laboratories and disciplines. Iterative research is limited by what expertise and equipment a scientist can access, which conferences they have attended, and what collaborators they happen to meet. As a result, impactful data are often buried in scientific literature, and insights travel slowly from one scientific field to the next. With valuable observations trapped in silos, cures take decades to surface. This poor coordination also erodes trust in science when a significant portion of experimental results cannot be verified by other scientists. 
• Our centuries-old approach to biomedical discovery means many key scientific connections are still left up to chance. And while we hope for the right information and capabilities to reach the right researchers, patients wait decades for breakthroughs for complex diseases, and inefficiencies in the research process waste valuable resources.

The Solution

• ARPA-H's Intelligent Generator of Research (IGoR) program aims to empower scientists to eliminate these long-standing inefficiencies and accelerate biomedical breakthroughs through a more nimble, reliable, and interoperable research ecosystem for the 21-st century. 
• Today, most researchers only have the resources to hunt for breakthroughs in the well-lit corners of science. IGoR allows them to illuminate darker, more complex areas with AI-guided experiments and an agile research marketplace.  
• The program aims to create a robust ecosystem that uses a systematic approach to generate hypotheses, design and conduct experiments, and refine models of biological systems to validate valuable biological knowledge at least ten times faster than traditional research approaches. IGoR will accomplish this by tasking research teams to create: advanced, mechanistic disease models; an AI-enabled system that identifies knowledge gaps and designs optimal experiments based on these models; a standardized protocol architecture that allows scientists to perform these experiments reproducibly; and a marketplace of qualified laboratories that execute these protocols and return gold-standard data to continuously improve the original models. 
• Through IGoR, breakthrough insights will no longer be delayed because a creative research team cannot access specific expertise or equipment. This powerful resource will support scientists as they pursue valuable research directions once thought to be too complex or too expensive. IGoR will upgrade biomedical research from a slow, iterative endeavor to a sophisticated, efficient system built for 21-st century science. 

Only ARPA-H can...

• Reimagine the biomedical research infrastructure as larger than the sum of what individual universities, companies, or institutes can achieve.
• Create incentives for teams to build and test rigorous, AI-enabled research ecosystems designed to accelerate therapeutic discovery for complex diseases.
• Convene and align academia, industry, and government around shared standards for interoperable, AI-enabled protocols and reusable, verifiable data.
• Assemble diverse performers to build a first-of-its-kind, continuously learning biomedical research ecosystem—linking mechanistic models, AI-driven experiment design, and rapid experimental execution.