The core of Kwong’s work will be development of the Cancer and Organ Degradome Atlas, or CODA platform. The project will catalog the enzymatic activity of cancer cells — collecting their unique biosignatures — and the typical cellular profiles of healthy tissues. Together, that information will function like a traditional atlas, showing researchers both when cancer cells are present and where they’re located.

With that data, the multi-institutional research team will develop a suite of bioengineered sensors that can be deployed in the body and send up an alert when they recognize the unique cancer-specific markers. The metabolic changes in cancer cells would trigger the release of a synthetic biomarker in high enough levels to be detected in blood, urine, or feces and signal the appearance of early cancer lesions.

“We know that enzymes are very important and clearly dysregulated. But we don't have the right tools. We have not had a comprehensive map to really say, these are all the things that are fully dysregulated in tumor cells versus healthy tissue,” Kwong said. “Our project will be the first to systematically map out, with spatial resolution inside the body, what are the things that are really different between cancer cells and healthy cells.”

Early detection is possible now, but for only a handful of cancers. Kwong’s vision is to build a one-size-fits-all product that could do the work of those existing tests — mammograms, colonoscopies, and Pap smears, for example — plus detect cancer types currently without reliable tests for early detection.

Kwong will work with Georgia Tech researchers John Blazeck in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Peng Qiu in Coulter BME on the project. Their team also includes Tal Danino, a biomedical engineer at Columbia University, and chemist Min Xue at the University of California, Riverside.

The ARPA-H agreement is the third connected to Georgia Tech announced in recent weeks.

Emory-based Coulter BME Professor Philip Santangelo received the first tranche of funding from the agency — $24 million — for a project building a toolbox of mRNA drugs to activate or shut off specific genes to help the immune system fight cancer and other disorders.

Josiah Hester in the School of Interactive Computing is co-principal investigator of a Rice University-led effort to develop an implant to help the body better respond to cancer treatments.

“At ARPA-H, we recognize the urgency of the health challenges facing cancer patients and their families.” said ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn, “and we are committed to funding truly transformative research that can improve health outcomes for everyone.”