Thursday, April 4, 2024 |  2 minutes, 38 seconds, or ~158 heartbeats    

Bioprinting Organs and Retraining Immune Cells, ARPA-H Launches Two New Research Programs 

From bioprinting organs on demand to retraining immune cells to combat diseases, ARPA-H’s two newest programs-EMBODY and PRINT-each aim to profoundly improve health by turning seemingly impossible ideas into real, groundbreaking transformations.

WHAT is EMBODY? The goal of EMBODY (Engineering of Immune Cells Inside the Body) is to radically alter how immune therapies are developed and delivered for life-threatening and chronic conditions by retraining healthy immune cells, eliminating time, cost, and access hurdles.

“By developing agents that target specific immune cell types, essentially providing on-the-job instructions to cells already active inside your body, we hope to make advanced immunotherapies available close to home for Americans across the country,” said EMBODY Program Manager Daria Fedyukina, Ph.D.  

WHAT is PRINT? PRINT (Personalized Regenerative Immunocompetent Nanotechnology Tissue) intends to use state-of-the-art bioprinting technology and a regenerative medicine approach to 3D print personalized, on demand organs that will not require immunosuppressive drugs. 

“By starting from multiple different types of cells, we will be creating organs that will be individually matched,” noted PRINT Program Manager Ryan Spitler, Ph.D. “The body will not recognize it as a foreign entity, eliminating the need of immunosuppressive drugs, which has never been done in the history of organ transplantation.” 

To learn more about both programs, including how to register for the upcoming Proposers’ Days, visit the EMBODY program page and PRINT program page.

ARPA-H’s first program, NITRO, selects teams to make joints heal themselves 

ARPA-H’s first program, NITRO (Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis) led by Program Manager Ross Uhrich, DMD, MBA, announced the five teams receiving awards to create and commercialize injectable and implantable regenerative therapies for osteoarthritis (OA). The performer teams are led by: Duke University, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia University, University of Colorado Boulder, and Case Western Reserve University. 

NITRO began this work at the program’s kickoff event held at Cherokee Nation this week. Cherokee Nation is the largest of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes and are based in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation is a spoke member of ARPANET-H's Investor Catalyst Hub.

Dr. Uhrich commented, “It is essential for NITRO to kickoff at Cherokee Nation, as osteoarthritis disproportionately impacts American Indian and Alaska Native communities. NITRO was built with the understanding that its technologies must be accessible for everyone suffering from OA now and forevermore. We must engineer solutions for every patient rather than innovate for the sake of innovation. This is our chance to eradicate one of the most significant disabilities and create a future in which people look back and wonder why we ever did joint replacements in the first place. Today, we take the first step towards creating a future without OA.”

Elsewhere in the ARPAsphere:

• REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. ARPA-H is seeking information on possible directions in autonomous robotic surgery. Deadline to submit comments is April 22 at 5:00 PM ET.
• SPRINT FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH: ARPA-H is committing $100 million towards transformative R&D in women’s health. Submissions to the ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health close April 15 at 12:00 PM ET.
• CT-NEURO project: ARPA-H funds new project to deliver breakthroughs in the effective treatment of brain and nervous system diseases to improve health outcomes. Read more in our press release.

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Interested in leading biomedical research that could change the world? Learn more at arpa-h.gov.

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