ARPA-H leaders will participate in the discussion at the Johns Hopkins Health Policy Forum

Renee Wegrzyn, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), and Kimberley Steele, director of the ARPA-H Futures in Health Sciences program, will join Theodore DeWeese, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, for a virtual conversation. on Tuesday, April 30, as part of the Johns Hopkins Health Policy Forum.

Founded in 2022, ARPA-H advances high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be easily achieved through traditional research or commercial activity.

The discussion, which begins at noon, will reflect on the agency’s innovative approach to the research ecosystem, the unique funding model and the launch of ARPA-H’s newest project, the Lymphatic Imaging Genomics Program , and pHenotyping Technologies (LIGHT), which pursue comprehensive diagnostic tools and revolutionize the detection of lymphatic dysfunction.

Johns Hopkins faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the general public are invited to tune in to the event; prior registration is required.

“Like DARPA in the post-Spuntik era, ARPA-H today is an accelerator, and Director Wegrzyn brings expertise and a sense of urgency to fund innovation to address the most important health issues of our time,” DeWeese said. “I’m thrilled to be able to bring his voice directly to the Hopkins community.”

Wegrzyn was appointed by President Joe Biden on October 11, 2022 as the first director of ARPA-H. She previously served as Vice President of Business Development at Ginkgo Bioworks and Head of Innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo, where she focused on applying the tools of synthetic biology to overcome infectious diseases. Wegrzyn spent more than a decade at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), including five years as a program manager with a $250 million portfolio and as a technical advisor to the Project Activity of Advanced Intelligence Research (IARPA).

Steele joined ARPA-H in November 2023 from The Lymphatic Education and Research Network (LE&RN), where she supported lymphatic research efforts as director of special projects. Before that, Steele was an associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed a minimally invasive and bariatric surgery fellowship at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty, becoming an associate professor while earning a doctorate in clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as certification with the American Board of Obesity Medicine. She is internationally recognized for her contributions to research on bariatric surgery, the gut-brain axis and neuroimaging in obesity.

This will be the 11th event in the Health Policy Forum series, which was launched in fall 2020 to highlight the university’s engagement with key leaders on health and health care policy issues. Past Events Highlights:

• Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (October 2020)
• Rochelle P. Walensky, Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (May 2021)
• Robert M. Davis, CEO and President of Merck (October 2021)
• Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (January 2022)
• Atul Gawande, Deputy Administrator, Office for Global Health, US Agency for International Development (April 2022)
• Donna Shalala, Former HHS Secretary and Member of Congress (June 2022)
• Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (December 2022)
• Michelle Lujan Grisham, Governor of New Mexico (May 2023)
• Sudip Parikh, CEO, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (July 2023)
• Tom Polen, Chairman, CEO and President, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) (November 2023)

The Health Policy Forum series is jointly organized by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, Carey Business School and School of Nursing in conjunction with Johns Hopkins Medicine.