Cutting Edge Biomedical Research Agency Established By Murray’s PREVENT Pandemics Bill Awards UW $21 Million for Cancer Imaging Research

ARPA-H announced University of Washington as one of eight schools to receive funding from new Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program

Murray: “The cutting-edge work happening at UW will help doctors get a full, accurate picture of the tumors they are working to treat, so they can make sure patients get the most effective care possible.”

Seattle, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and former Chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released the following statement in response to ARPA-H announcing that University of Washington would receive $21.1 million under the Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program, which aims to develop novel technologies that will allow surgeons to better distinguish between healthy tissue and cancer, enabling the removal of all cancer tissue in a single surgery.

“I am so proud to see Washington state continuing to lead the way with lifesaving cancer research, and to see that leadership recognized with federal dollars from the new ARPA-H agency I created to help us push the bounds of biomedical research,” said Senator Murray. “The cutting-edge work happening at UW will help doctors get a full, accurate picture of the tumors they are working to treat, so they can make sure patients get the most effective care possible. Research into issues like making sure no cancer is overlooked, left behind, or misidentified is life and death for so many patients—and I am going to continue fighting for strong investments in this work.”

ARPA-H announced a total of $150 million in awards under its PSI program. University of Washington in Seattle, WA will receive up to $21.1 million to develop a microscopy system to allow surgeons to image the entire surface of the tumor by placing it on a lightsheet scanner. The team is also developing algorithms to pseudo-stain the resulting images, so that the sample doesn’t need to be dyed in the operating room; instead, AI methods will take a greyscale image and render it similar to conventional pathology in order to better classify it.

Senator Murray has been a staunch advocate for investments in America’s leadership in biomedical research. Over her years as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, she has secured billions of dollars in increases for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, and during her time as Chair of the HELP Committee she established the new ARPA-H research agency as part of her PREVENT Pandemics Act to advance some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Murray protected $1.5 billion for ARPA-H in this year’s spending package, and is working to sustain this funding for the coming year.  

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