Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE CURRENTLY OPEN RESEARCH TOPICS. PLEASE SEE SECTION 8 OF THE BAA FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

• ARPA-H 01 - Development of an annual test to inform women about their future fertility - The purpose of this topic is to discover new biomarkers that provide women with actionable data for fertility planning.  Results from this work will help inform the program manager regarding the feasibility of future programs focused on enhancing natural fertility before the need of IVF and guiding the development of women’s health monitoring and improvement tools. This work will develop a diagnostic test that can assess fertility status and generate an estimated timeline for the onset of infertility. This topic seeks to develop a test that is affordable, suitable for at least annual use, and provides user-friendly results for patients and care teams to support childbearing decisions.    

• ARPA-H 02 - Versatile Bioadhesives - The purpose of this topic is to develop next-generation bioadhesive platforms that can safely and reliably seal, bond, and repair a wide range of tissues in challenging clinical conditions, including wet, bloody, and mechanically dynamic environments. These platforms may also be designed to deliver biologics or small molecules as part of treatment. The goal is to create bioadhesives with key performance attributes such as strong tissue adhesion, controlled degradation, reversibility, biocompatibility, and broad compatibility across multiple tissues and organs. If successful, this topic could enable widely deployable solutions for hemostasis, leak prevention, tissue repair, and device fixation, ultimately helping reduce complications and improve patient outcomes across many care settings 

• ARPA-H 03 - Universal Platform for Living Adaptive Toxin-removal (UNI-PLAT) - The purpose of this topic area is to catalyze the development of a universal, “plug-and-play” synthetic biology platform that enables next-generation microbial chassis capable of performing a broad array of programmable functions. While this solicitation primarily uses toxin removal as a proof-of-concept in relation to chronic disease management, the platform is intended to be adaptable to a range of challenges across industries such as environmental remediation, biomanufacturing, agriculture, holistic medicine, and therapeutic discovery. The broader goal is to create a stable, reliable, and easily reprogrammable microbial platform that demonstrates potential for cross-sector impact beyond the initial use case.  

• ARPA-H 04 - Breaking Ground: The First Curative, Durable, Non-Surgical Therapy for Endometriosis – The purpose of this topic aims to develop treatments for endometriosis that are non-surgical. Proposers are expected to develop novel, non-surgical therapies to decrease the size or deactivate endometrial implants, to decrease inflammation cause by implants, and / or prevent growth or regrowth of the lesions. Broadly, this should be a novel, non-surgical, curative treatment for endometriosis.  

• ARPA-H 05 - ARPA-H Lineage Topic - The purpose of this topic supports the advancement, commercialization, and translation of technologies that originated from ARPA-H funded efforts. It is intended to help small businesses and startups develop viable products based on these technologies. ARPA-H’s goal is to give small businesses an off-ramp to finish developing their technology/product, explore secondary or interim applications of the technology, and time to achieve self-sufficiency. 

• ARPA-H 06 - Rapid Comprehensive Diagnostic Test for Multi-System Autoimmune Disease -The purpose of this topic is to spur the development of novel, rapid diagnostic assays for multi-system autoimmune disease, which represents an unmet healthcare need. Moreover, in its ideal embodiment this diagnostic test might allow typical primary care physicians to diagnose and predict tissue-specific autoimmune disease manifestations, thereby streamlining referral of the patient to a specialist. This goal is made more feasible by recent technological developments including the ability to detect tissue-specific signatures of immune-mediated stress by assessing circulating cells and/or tissue-specific molecular products.   

• ARPA-H 07 - Virtual Human Brain for the Development of Neurosurgical Robotics - The purpose of this topic aims to take a first step toward AI-assisted intracranial microsurgery by creating a high-resolution, physically and anatomically accurate virtual human brain.