Day One Project Contributor Dr. Geoffrey Ling Will Testify Before Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Day One contributor Dr. Geoffrey Ling will testify before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce on “ARPA-H: The Next Frontier of Biomedical Research.”
Two years ago, Dr. Ling first called for the creation of an Advanced Research Project Agency for Health in a Day One Project memo. The memo, “Creating the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA)”, enumerates how a HARPA or ARPA-H can directly address the massive market failures at the center of American healthcare enterprise. Establishing a new Health Advanced Research Projects Agency modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) can leverage existing basic science research programs supported by taxpayer dollars, and the efforts of the private sector, to develop new capabilities for disease prevention, detection, and treatment and overcome the bottlenecks that have historically limited progress, writes Dr. Ling and collaborator Dr. Michael Stebbins in the memo.
“The need for HARPA is twofold. First, developing treatments for disease is difficult and time consuming. HARPA will provide the sustained drive needed to push through challenges and achieve medical breakthroughs by building new platform technologies. Second, the U.S. healthcare system largely relies on the private sector to leverage national investments in basic research and develop commercially available treatments and cures,” the authors write in the memo.
###
The Wildfire Intelligence Center would bring together expertise at all levels of government to give our firefighters and first responders access to cutting-edge tools and the decision support they need to confront this growing crisis.
S.325 would establish a clear, sustained federal governance structure for extreme heat by bringing all responsible agencies together to coordinate planning, preparedness, and response, a key recommendation of FAS’ 2025 Heat Policy Agenda.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 471, the re-introduction of the Fix Our Forests Act.
Understanding and planning for the compound impacts of extreme heat and wildfire smoke will improve public health preparedness, mitigate public exposure to extreme heat and wildfire smoke, and minimize economic losses.