Argonne National Laboratory Receives $21.7 Million for AI-Driven Cancer and Vaccine Research

Argonne to explore novel ways to fight cancer and | Newswise

Participants attend a kickoff workshop for the Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation (APECx) project at Argonne. APECx aims to transform vaccine antigen discovery by developing toolkits that target entire viral families. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will use its world-leading capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing to research novel ways to fight cancer and transform vaccine discovery. The two awards, totaling up to $21.7 million, are from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Established in 2022, ARPA-H's mission is to accelerate transformative biomedical research leading to better health outcomes for everyone. The Argonne awards aim to advance this mission by utilizing the lab's capabilities in AI, high performance computing, simulation and structural biology. "Argonne is at the forefront of AI research, playing an integral role in applying innovative methods to solve complex scientific and engineering challenges. This funding will allow us to apply our efforts to some of our hardest problems, like eliminating cancer and addressing potential global pandemics," said Laboratory Director Paul Kearns. The Integrated AI and Experimental Approaches for Targeting Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Designing Anticancer Ligands (IDEAL) project received $15 million to explore ways to slow or stop the growth of tumors that don't respond to medication. The project will be conducted in partnership with the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. Scientists will use AI methods including foundation models -- large-scale models trained on vast datasets -- that can reveal insights and discover patterns. Researchers will use Argonne's unparalleled computing and experimental facilities: the Aurora exascale supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and the ultrabright X-rays at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS). The ALCF and APS are DOE Office of Science user facilities. "The drug discovery process is long, inefficient and costly, with the majority of new drugs failing during clinical trials," said Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, director of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center; dean for Oncology, Biological Sciences Division; and The AbbVie Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "Patients with cancer don't have time to wait for new treatments, so there is a strong need to compress the drug discovery timeline, and we aim to do that with novel synergistic approaches that take advantage of Argonne's supercomputational capabilities and the strength in chemistry and cancer biology at the University of Chicago." Argonne also received up to $6.7 million to support the Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation (APECx) program. APECx aims to transform vaccine antigen discovery by developing toolkits that target entire viral families. If successful, it will demonstrate the possibility of broadly effective vaccines against multiple viral threats including cancer, autoimmune disease, chronic illness, emerging infections, and potential pandemics. "We are excited to work with ARPA-H and partners who are leading experts in their fields to move the needle on global health issues," said Argonne's Daniel Schabacker, principal investigator on these projects. "This substantial investment by ARPA-H will enable Argonne to further our efforts in leveraging AI and computing to better understand complex health-related challenges," said co-investigator Thomas Brettin, strategic program manager in Argonne's Computing, Environment and Life Sciences directorate. The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of disciplines. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, the ALCF is one of two DOE Leadership Computing Facilities in the nation dedicated to open science. The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science's Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world's most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation's economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.

Argonne receives $21.7 million to advance cancer and vaccine discoveries

DOE/Argonne National LaboratoryNov 15 2024 The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will use its world-leading capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing to research novel ways to fight cancer and transform vaccine discovery. The two awards, totaling up to $21.7 million, are from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Established in 2022, ARPA-H's mission is to accelerate transformative biomedical research leading to better health outcomes for everyone. The Argonne awards aim to advance this mission by utilizing the lab's capabilities in AI, high performance computing, simulation and structural biology. "Argonne is at the forefront of AI research, playing an integral role in applying innovative methods to solve complex scientific and engineering challenges. This funding will allow us to apply our efforts to some of our hardest problems, like eliminating cancer and addressing potential global pandemics," said Laboratory Director Paul Kearns. The Integrated AI and Experimental Approaches for Targeting Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Designing Anticancer Ligands (IDEAL) project received $15 million to explore ways to slow or stop the growth of tumors that don't respond to medication. The project will be conducted in partnership with the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. Scientists will use AI methods including foundation models -; large-scale models trained on vast datasets -; that can reveal insights and discover patterns. Researchers will use Argonne's unparalleled computing and experimental facilities: the Aurora exascale supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and the ultrabright X-rays at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS). The ALCF and APS are DOE Office of Science user facilities. The drug discovery process is long, inefficient and costly, with the majority of new drugs failing during clinical trials. Patients with cancer don't have time to wait for new treatments, so there is a strong need to compress the drug discovery timeline, and we aim to do that with novel synergistic approaches that take advantage of Argonne's supercomputational capabilities and the strength in chemistry and cancer biology at the University of Chicago." Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, Director of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center; dean for Oncology, Biological Sciences Division; and The AbbVie Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Argonne also received up to $6.7 million to support the Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation (APECx) program. APECx aims to transform vaccine antigen discovery by developing toolkits that target entire viral families. If successful, it will demonstrate the possibility of broadly effective vaccines against multiple viral threats including cancer, autoimmune disease, chronic illness, emerging infections, and potential pandemics. "We are excited to work with ARPA-H and partners who are leading experts in their fields to move the needle on global health issues," said Argonne's Daniel Schabacker, principal investigator on these projects. "This substantial investment by ARPA-H will enable Argonne to further our efforts in leveraging AI and computing to better understand complex health-related challenges," said co-investigator Thomas Brettin, strategic program manager in Argonne's Computing, Environment and Life Sciences directorate. The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of disciplines. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, the ALCF is one of two DOE Leadership Computing Facilities in the nation dedicated to open science. DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cance | Newswise

Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC) aim to explore ways to slow or stop the growth of tumors that don't respond to medication by using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and high-performance computing capabilities found at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. The UCCCC will receive $6 million as part of an up to $15 million project that will leverage advanced AI/ML approaches to mine vast datasets and uncover patterns that can lead to the development of new treatments for drug-resistant cancer. Funding is provided by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established in 2022 to fast-track transformative biomedical research. "The drug discovery process is long, inefficient and costly, with the majority of new drugs failing during clinical trials," said Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, UCCCC Director; Dean for Oncology, Biological Sciences Division; and The AbbVie Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "Patients with cancer don't have time to wait for new treatments, so there is a strong need to compress the drug discovery timeline and we aim to do that with novel synergistic approaches that take advantage of Argonne's supercomputing capabilities and the strengths in chemistry and cancer biology at the University of Chicago." Cancer drug discovery is a complex and resource-intensive process, typically taking up to 15 years and more than $2 billion dollars to take a drug from discovery of a target to FDA approval. In addition, while more than 4,500 human proteins are estimated to be druggable, less than 10% of them are currently targeted by approved drugs. For example, it is estimated that only 14% to 28% of patients with gynecologic cancers could be assigned to drugs based on the tumor molecular profile, meaning many patients do not have many effective treatment options. The joint Argonne/UCCCC project, titled "Integrated AI and Experimental Approaches for Targeting Intrinsically Disordered ProtEins in Designing Anticancer Ligands" (IDEAL), will use cutting-edge technology and experimental approaches to narrow down the search to only the most promising compounds that can be translated into better treatments. The UChicago Medicine team will be led by Odunsi as co-principal investigator and includes Christopher Weber, PhD; Savas Tay, PhD; and Bryan Dickinson, PhD. The Argonne team will be led by Dan Schabacker, PhD; Rick Stevens, PhD; Arvind Ramanathan, PhD; and Thomas Brettin, PhD; with support from Andrzej Joachimiak, PhD. The proposal was developed with the assistance of the University of Chicago Office of Research Development (ORD), which had been supporting this collaboration since its start in 2021. "With Argonne's world-leading expertise in AI and the University of Chicago's exceptional capabilities in cancer research, we are in a unique position to solve complex scientific challenges in cancer, one of the most pressing healthcare problems," said co-investigator Thomas Brettin, strategic program manager in Argonne's Computing, Environment and Life Sciences directorate. Researchers will use Argonne's unparalleled computing and experimental facilities: the Aurora exascale supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and the ultrabright X-rays at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. These technologies will allow researchers to screen billions of possible molecules (including all drugs that are currently available) in a matter of a couple of hours and simulate thousands of complexes within days. The IDEAL team will test this new model on targets known to be relevant in ovarian cancer, the deadliest of gynecologic cancers and one that is notoriously resistant to treatment. Although the pilot project will focus on ovarian cancer, the accelerated pipeline is intended to apply to any target for any cancer type. "This project brings together stellar computational capabilities, the best structural biology resources, a world-class cancer center and some of the best scientists," Odunsi said. "I believe this 'dream team' has the potential to revolutionize the cancer drug discovery timeline and change the paradigm for patients that currently have a poor prognosis and little hope for recovery."