Instruct & Modulate Protein Ensembles for Disease Evasion
UNC-Chapel Hill will lead a consortium receiving up to $24.8 million to detect and stop some of the world’s most devastating diseases, including Alzheimer’s and pulmonary fibrosis at their earliest molecular stage, years before symptoms appear.
Funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the project will bring together seven universities and industry partner Siemens Healthineers to study the earliest molecular changes associated with protein-misfolding diseases.
“For a century, we’ve fought these diseases (Alzheimer's, ALS, fibrosis, etc) after the damage is done. Our team’s focus is about getting there first — finding the earliest signs of trouble and acting before disease ever takes hold. ARPA-H asked for moonshot ideas on an aggressive timeline, and our team answered."
An estimated 7.2 million senior Americans are dealing with Alzheimer’s. That number is projected to double in the next 30 years if we do not take initiative and get out in front of the problem before it unfolds. This ambitious project, BIOGAMI, presented by ARPA-H, is giving us a sprint of 4 years to develop testing and treatment solutions to IMPEDE the proliferation of this and other terrible – and we believe prevntable – protein-misfolding diseases. Our aim is alter the above projection so that zero older Americans with Alzheimer’s are projected by 2060.
The Freeman Lab at UNC Chapel Hill embarks on an ambitious undertaking of identifying and treating diseases resulting from misfolding of proteins, such as Alzheimer’s, ALS and fibrosis in their early stages before symptoms occur.
Funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the Freeman Lab is spearheading this campaign in collaboration with UNSW Sydney, University of Michigan, Emory University, University of Copenhagen, UC San Diego, University of Texas at Austin and Siemens Healthineers.