The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced awards to six research consortia under its BIOmolecular Grammar for protein Aggregation Modulation and Intervention (BIOGAMI) program, committing up to USD 152 million over four years to develop experimental and AI-based methods for predicting and potentially preventing protein misfolding implicated in neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and other chronic conditions.
The program focuses on intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), whose flexible structures make their behavior difficult to predict using conventional protein-modeling approaches. BIOGAMI aims to develop tools for detecting early changes in protein conformations, identifying disease-associated aggregation pathways, and designing interventions before irreversible cellular damage occurs. Funding is contingent on research teams meeting accelerated development milestones.
Among the largest awards, a consortium co-led by Georgetown University and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging secured up to USD 51.7 million for SEEDS (Sequence-to-disease: Environment-aware Ensembles of Disordered proteins at Scale), a four-year project targeting Alzheimer's disease and Ewing sarcoma. Led by Georgetown's Priyanka Joshi and the Buck Institute's Chuankai Zhou, SEEDS combines detailed investigation of tau and EWS::FLI1 protein behavior with genome-scale profiling of disordered protein regions to train predictive foundation models.
Johns Hopkins University received an award of up to USD 52 million for DETR, which will investigate disease-associated protein conformations and develop protein and cyclic peptide binders, initially targeting Parkinson's disease, other synucleinopathies, and Ewing sarcoma.