ARPA-H launches two new funding opportunities focused on accelerating the time it takes to diagnose rare diseases and extending the healthspan of Americans.
RAPID Diagnostics For Rare Diseases
The RAPID (Rare disease AI/ML for Precision Integrated Diagnostics) program intends to transform the rare disease diagnostic odyssey by shortening the time it takes for individuals to gain an accurate diagnosis. It is estimated that up to half of all people with a rare disease remain undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. RAPID is designed to accelerate the diagnosis of rare and ultra-rare diseases by developing highly accurate AI-based detection models for both clinical diagnostic support and direct-to-patient systems.
"By leveraging AI, we can expand access to rare disease expertise and greatly reduce time to diagnosis — from years to months or even days. AI-enabled support tools allow us to sift through the 'haystack' of patient data more efficiently and pinpoint the 'needles' of rare diseases. Combined with access to confirmatory testing, such as whole genome sequencing, these tools can greatly accelerate the path to support and available treatments,” said RAPID Program Manager Scott Gorman.
PROSPR For Healthy Aging
The PROSPR (PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience) program aims to “extend the number of years aging adults live healthy lives and enjoy overall well-being (healthspan) by compressing the frailty and disability that comes with aging, into a shorter duration of time near the end of life,” according to Program Manager Andrew Brack, Ph.D.
A tectonic shift in the study of aging. PROSPR will focus on the physiological and biochemical markers of early health changes during aging to better understand and target the underlying causes of age-related disease, with a goal to develop therapeutics aimed at prolonging healthspan for all Americans. From app to drug developers. PROSPR encourages proposals from decentralized clinical trialists, large-data harmonization experts, wearable tech and app developers, physiological and biochemical biomarker researchers, drug developers as well as from the private sector, nonprofits, and other stakeholders.
PROSPR is bolstered by the recent funding of a project called PATH (Personalized Analytics for Transforming Health Care), which is led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging to improve the prediction and identification of risk factors for chronic diseases, starting with Type 2 Diabetes. To learn more about projects as they are awarded, visit the project awardee page.
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