ARPA-H award aims to combat antimicrobial resistance

ARPA-H announces award to address the rapidly growing threat of antimicrobial resistance and drive antibiotic discovery to improve health outcomes
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) today announced a new project to combat the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Bacterial infections remain a leading cause of death worldwide and more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur each year in the United States, causing more than 35,000 deaths. These infections also further prolong hospital stays and increase healthcare costs.

To combat this crisis, ARPA-H is funding through its Open Broad Agency Announcement (Open BAA) the Defeating Antibiotic Resistance through Transformative Solutions (DARTS) project. DARTS focuses on developing a set of diagnostic and experimental platforms that that can reveal insights into how antibiotic resistance starts, search for new antibiotics, and rapidly identify the right antibiotic to prescribe for a particular infection in real time.