The Biden administration’s new biomedical research agency said Wednesday it is investing up to $24 million to develop mRNA platforms that can train the immune system to more effectively fight cancer and other diseases.
The research will be led by a team at Emory University in Atlanta. The project will be funded through the administration’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a new agency charged with funding high-risk, high-reward research.
The project is paired with President Biden’s “cancer moonshot,” which aims to cut the cancer death rate in half by 2047.
ARPA-H and the moonshot are part of Biden’s “unity agenda” announced during his 2022 State of the Union address to bring the country together on a bipartisan basis on issues such as combating cancer.
It’s the first award from the agency’s first solicitation for proposals that opened last year.
The goal of the project is to create a “toolbox of mRNA and related technologies that could be used to ‘turn on’ helpful immune responses, like prompting immune cells to target and attack tumors,” the White House said in a statement. Other applications could extend to autoimmune disorders, transplants and infectious diseases.
“Over the past few years, COVID-19 vaccines developed using mRNA technology have saved millions of lives around the world. These therapies … represent the power of American ingenuity and innovation,” Biden said in a statement. “Now, a skilled team at Emory University in Atlanta will work to adapt these technologies to turn more cancers into curable diseases. This is a bold endeavor that has the potential to transform the fight against cancer and other difficult diagnoses.”
ARPA-H was launched last year with an initial $1 billion in funding. Biden earlier this year called for up to $2.5 billion for the agency in his fiscal 2024 budget.
