ARPA-H Funds $28.6 Million AI Protein Research Project

ARPA-H will provide up to $28.6 million for a research project that uses AI to predict protein changes linked to neurodegenerative diseases, the Stowers Institute said in a press release. The NATIVE-ID project is led by the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

Randal Halfmann's laboratory at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research will receive about $4.1 million over two years. The lab plans to produce more than 10 billion measurements of protein aggregation across 50,000 proteins and more than 1 million samples. Researchers will use the data to train AI models to predict how disordered proteins change shape and clump together.

The team will initially study frontotemporal lobar degeneration, which shares genetic and biological features with ALS. Other participants include Brown University, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, Parallel Squared Technology Institute and Texas A&M University. The first two year phase will focus on datasets and models, while a planned second phase will test possible treatments and methods for detecting protein dysfunction earlier.