The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is investing up to $24 million in an Emory University-led project that specializes in the use of mRNA to treat cancer and other diseases that have limited treatment options.
ARPA-H on Wednesday debuted the Curing the Uncurable via RNA-Encoded Immunogene Tuning project, which is part of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot initiative.
CUREIT, which is the first award funded through ARPA-H’s Open Broad Agency Announcement, will work toward an mRNA and gene modulation delivery toolkit for illnesses related to immune dysregulation. The technology is expected to activate immune cells to target tumors or diseased cells responsible for autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases.
“CUREIT aims to develop entirely new tools and methods to improve therapies so that fewer families experience loss from cancer,” said Amy Jenkins, mission office director of ARPA-H. “The advances in programming immune cell function that may result from CUREIT could also be broadly applied to many other health conditions affecting Americans.”
