ARC institute launches—includes Stanford, Berkeley

https://twitter.com/user/status/1471156157934829570

 

Arc gives scientists no-strings-attached, multi-year funding, so that they don’t have to apply for external grants, and invests in the rapid development of experimental and computational technological tools.

As individuals, Arc researchers collaborate across diverse disciplines to study complex diseases, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and immune dysfunction. As an organization, Arc strives to enable ambitious, long-term research agendas.

Arc’s mission is to accelerate scientific progress, understand the root causes of disease, and narrow the gap between discoveries and impact on patients.​

Sounds great and applicable here. Let's hope this is a real mission statement and not a feel-good slogan or marketing pitch. If they want to make a splash, solving one of the biggest scientific puzzles in history sounds like a great start. Unless they're chicken, that is. Buck-buck-buckaaah!

 

What does this mean for less popular areas like ME/CFS or LongCovid? Or is this just easier access for more popular diseases to be researched?

 

I just hope there are less time travelling dinosaurs this time.

 

They have $650 million in committed funds…. that’s like a lot.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1471208407298310144

 

So just regular dinosaurs, then? One does have to place limits on suspension of disbelief. Time travel? Pffft.

 

https://primeval.fandom.com/wiki/Anomaly_Research_Centre_(first_building)

 

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/genbio.2022.29017.jgr

A bold new nonprofit research institute in Palo Alto, California, infuses uniquely funded core investigators, biotech-inspired technology centers, and academic partnerships to solve complex diseases.

Taking root on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, CA, Arc's research biome, supported by $650 million in initial funding, will consist of four main elements: (1) long-term funded core investigators (not tied to a specific project), (2) multidisciplinary experts in one physical laboratory, (3) biotech-inspired technology centers, and (4) partnerships with academic institutions such as Stanford, University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and UC Berkeley.

This is not the first time we have seen a combination of curiosity-driven science (modeled best by the university system), multidisciplinary experts under one roof (institutes such as the Broad do this well today), scientific infrastructure, tools (normally seen in a biotech), and almost unconstrained funding, working together to push the scientific progress pedal to the metal. (There are some similarities to the model of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute [HHMI], which employs ∼270 biomedical investigators in a people-not-projects approach to conduct “risky” research.)

Arc aims to flourish by nurturing the early noncommercial preclinical stage of discovery pertaining to complex diseases such as Alzheimer's, as opposed to casting a wider net on human health and treating disease such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative or similar recent endeavors that have a broader biology and engineering slant (Box 1).

To ensure that discoveries at Arc that are medically relevant (such as key disease pathways and targets) actually make an impact on patients, the nonprofit plans to provide translational support: a faster IP licensing process, finance assistance, and a drug development and expert advisory network. Arc will also form targeted entrepreneurial teams committed to exploring specific concepts, such as a new gene target or effector chemical. Ultimately, the mission is to enable Arc scientists, engineers, and innovators to translate their research into tangible benefits for patients with complex disease.

 

I hope that ME researchers submit grant applications to this new institute. It is set up to remove some of the hurdles to doing early stage translational science.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1617252077645725696

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1675998142779596800