Self-healing joints? Perfect surgeries? Your tax $$ could make it happen

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Speaker 1 ( 00:01 ):
Recorded on location at Aspen Ideas Health in Aspen, Colorado.
Speaker 2 ( 00:12 ):
In President Biden's most recent State of the Union address, he said to the country-
Joe Biden ( 00:17 ):
We owe it to ourselves to keep supporting our new health research agency called ARPA-H. And remind
us that we can do big things like end cancer as we know it, and we will.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 00:34 ):
How can we pursue some of these breakthroughs in our case for health? By empowering the scientists,
the program managers that have these really big ideas that are so risky that the technical sector, the
private sector can't address because there's no proof of concept.
Speaker 1 ( 00:51 ):
Our guest is the person leading the ARPA initiative. She holds a PhD and has lots of goals to meet. Renee
Wegrzyn is the Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. We're on location at
Aspen Ideas Health, and this is Conversations on Healthcare.
Speaker 2 ( 01:13 ):
Renee, welcome back to Conversations on Healthcare.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 01:16 ):
Thank you very much. So excited to be here.
Speaker 2 ( 01:18 ):
It's so great to see you here at Aspen Ideas Health. We connected 12 months ago and a lot's been going
on, and we'd love to hear sort of an update and an overview, and I really sort of love this model of
identifying and empowering scientist and also incenting them. It was very powerful design that the
President came up with in Congress. Tell us more.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 01:47 ):
Yeah, so when we met last year, I was still really fresh, new on the job. We were just getting started.
President Biden did launch ARPA-H in March of 2022. I was sworn in October of 2022 to create a brand
new agency. I still think I held the title for newest federal agency and really modeled after the DARPA
business model that was launched originally by President Eisenhower. And the idea there being how can
we pursue some of these breakthroughs in our case for health by empowering those scientists, the
program managers that have these really big ideas that are so risky that the technical sector, the private
sector can't address because there's no proof of concept and it's also not the right place for other parts
of government that is more curiosity driven research? We're really problem focused.
( 02:39 ):
And so that's really what the agency is we hire these program managers with their big ideas in our case
in health, and we give them three years to sprint at that problem. Another way to say that is every two

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weeks that goes by, 1% of their time is up. So they bring a sense of urgency to solving those problems.
And we also give them resources to really focus on just the technical risk and we make sure that they
have the resources that the execution risk, the right team is in place to catalyze the entire ecosystem. If
we get to those proofs of concept, maybe we're the first funder, but then somebody else can be the
second funder after our investments.

Speaker 2 ( 03:17 ):
What was the total funding that you started out with?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 03:19 ):
So our initial appropriation was $1 billion, and for the last two years since then, we've had another one
and a half billion dollars per year appropriation. So this year was a flat year. I'd love to continue to grow
because that gives us more shots on goal, but it's been a really healthy start for us in terms of resources
to get those programs started.

Speaker 1 ( 03:44 ):
Well, it is not often, as we said a year ago, that an opportunity like this comes along, a new federal
agency, only a billion to get started. That's darn good to get started. But we'd love to pick up on what
President Biden said about trying to end cancer. And I know your agency has launched four
transformational cancer related programs, several projects committed to tackling the disease at every
angle from diagnostics to prevention. So I know that people would be very interested in hearing about
this. Give us an overview.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 04:15 ):
So ARPA-H is actually born initially out of some of those ideas, I think from Cancer Moonshot. When
President Biden was Vice President, obviously he had the tragedy of losing his son Beau to cancer and
really struggled even how well positioned he was and how well resourced he was. There still were so
many challenges, everything from the medical records, of course, down to the therapeutics and
diagnostics that were a huge challenge. So he was inspired at the time to launch Cancer Moonshot to
really tackle some of these biggest challenges in cancer. So with ARPA-H, when he became President, it's
really what is the agency for moonshots for all diseases? We do address cancer and moonshot goals, but
we are disease agnostic actually.
( 05:01 ):
So the investments that we've made in cancer range from our Precision Surgical Interventions program,
which think about reimagining the operating room suites. When a surgeon is looking into a surgical
cavity trying to remove a tumor. Right now, the way that it's done is as the tumors removed, there's also
slices taken because tumor tissue looks like healthy tissue. A pathologist has to run down the hall and
look and say, "Have you gotten all the tumor or not? Are you within the tumor margin?" That is really
inefficient and that's not every hospital can do that. So this program is trying to reimagine just the
imaging tools. So think about the reagents that help us see those tumor margins. Even augmented
visualization by the surgeon, him or herself, all the way to the robotics that will help us do that with this
incredible precision.
( 05:54 ):
Importantly, making it so that we can do this in the best academic centers in the country, but also in a
rural setting where staff might not be trained in some of the cancer center expertise. And that's really

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one of those big investments. You can see how we tackle that whole program. We have a what if
question that goes with each one of our investments. And so for that Precision Surgical Interventions
program, it's what if cancer surgeries were one and done? And so that's really the goal by the end of
that effort.

Speaker 1 ( 06:25 ):
Great question.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 06:26 ):
Yeah. And another what if that we have for cancer is what if clinical trials adapted and evolved in the
way that tumors do? So many patients unfortunately will be initially responsive to a chemotherapy, let's
say, and then become resistant to it, and they're no longer effective and they have to look for a new
drug. And this is really a struggle, of course, in that cancer ecosystem. And so the ADAPT program is
really intended to understand and discover some of the biomarkers and the signals that are some of
those early signs that something is changing and a patient may no longer be responsive and then teeing
them up to be aligned to the best next new therapeutic, so you evolve the course of treatment in real
time, initially keeping pace and then ultimately outpacing that cancer. So those are some of the two
biggest ones.

Speaker 1 ( 07:20 ):
Great. Wonderful. Thank you.

Speaker 2 ( 07:21 ):
And you're not thinking about all of that from Washington. You now have hubs in Cambridge and just I
think recently opened in Dallas, is that...

Renee Wegrzyn ( 07:29 ):
That's correct, yes.

Speaker 2 ( 07:30 ):
And how do those operate?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 07:31 ):
Yeah, so what's really interesting is when we got our authorities that allow us to move nimbly in this
new business model, Congress also said, "ARPA-H, thou shalt be in three geographies," and really let us
pick what we were going to do. And so rather than pick three cities that represent healthcare burden in
the United States, it'd be impossible to pick three cities that really reflected that, we said, "We're going
to compete this and we're going to ask cities..." We want to understand where are the hubs that help us
actually transition our capabilities into the real world, but also recruit all 50 states to be party to this.
We don't want to only have three sites. So those hubs are focused on our stakeholders and operations
hub in Washington DC. This is where we're close to FDA and Congress and NIH, others that are
important to us.
( 08:20 ):

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And Boston, Massachusetts, Cambridge, I used to say, excuse me, Cambridge is not Boston. They've
made very clear to me. Cambridge won our investor catalyst hub. So as I mentioned, we're initially the
first investor but not the second always. So we want to keep those investors close to understand what
we need to de-risk so that they can be the next funder. And then last but not least, Dallas one, our
customer experience hub. So one of the failures of federal funding for healthcare has been a lot of
innovation happens in the lab, but in isolation. A patient, a healthcare provider, aren't involved and
providing their opinion of, would I use this tool or this technology in the surgical program I just
described? We need to make sure surgeons are giving us feedback. Would you bring this into your work
stream? Out of Dallas we have that customer experience hub to help us recruit clinical trials, but also
patients and healthcare providers.

Speaker 1 ( 09:13 ):
I think with each question we ask, I have the same thought, which is you have the world's most
interesting job. This is really wonderful.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 09:21 ):
It is so much fun.

Speaker 1 ( 09:22 ):
So groundbreaking compared to how things usually happen at the federal level. So we have lots more
questions for you though. We wanted to ask you about the $50 million program to enhance and
automate cybersecurity for healthcare facilities. And six months ago, we might not have picked that as a
question for you, but when we think about what has happened and how much trauma it has wrought on
the healthcare system and all who use it through the well-publicized cybersecurity attack on one of the
biggest systems, very important. Tell us what you're doing in this space.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 09:55 ):
Yeah, this is... Upgrade is the program. It's a really interesting program focused on creating the cyber
defenses for our healthcare systems. And so this was actually pretty astonishing to me coming from
DARPA where I had worked previously where I mingled with program managers that were tip of the
spear cyber for national security. It's really taken as such a priority. These are our most critical
resources, we have to defend them. And coming to the health sector, I was surprised at how limited our
defenses were. And so we have a first time that we have a dual headed program manager. He's half-
time, actually, he's part-time, not completely half, but at DARPA and then spend some of his time at
ARPA-H, bringing some of that expertise to help us extend those protections to the healthcare
ecosystem. So that was recently just announced. He's now looking for performers that will be competing
for those resources.
( 10:50 ):
He's also doing a challenge that we are doing in participation with DARPA for autonomous AI patching of
vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure. And so what's really important about that is attacks on
infrastructure, a lot of companies, the industry doesn't have tools to protect. So even if we wanted to
say, "Hey, big pharma companies, protect your assets." They don't necessarily have the tools. And so we
want to create open source tools to protect our infrastructure, hospitals, pharma manufacturing, you
name it.
( 11:23 ):

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And there's going to be a competition this summer at DEF CON, which is a big hacker conference. A lot
of these systems go down because of hackers and so it's sort of reverse engineering that. How do we in
an autonomous manner, patch and defend against those attacks from hackers? And so for us, we're
obviously focused on that healthcare infrastructure. DARPA is really interested in electronics grid and
other infrastructure, transportation, et cetera that might be impacted. So it's a really interesting way to
work with other organizations within government that can move at our pace, but also really share those
learnings. But before ARPA-H, there just absolutely was no program like that for healthcare, not in the
private sector and not in the federal government. And so that's really the sweet spot that we need to
look for with each and every effort that we launch.

Speaker 2 ( 12:12 ):
Well, you're excited about a lot of things on the horizon. I know you're a supporter of artificial
intelligence for replacing drug experiments on animals with more human-like technology models. Talk to
us a little bit about that. And here at Aspen Ideas Health, we've also heard people who are thinking
about predictive models with AI in that long period of 10 years where things may not be happening,
whether or not they can predict Alzheimer's or Parkinson's and the like. Lots going on in the AI space.
Where are you focused and where are you trying to incent people to come up with innovations?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 12:47 ):
So we actually, on what you've just described, we don't yet have a program launch, but it's an area that
we're very interested in in making investments. The ADAPT program already starting to look at some of
these early predictive tools that we can predict a patient who will be changing their responsiveness. But
if you just really think about just drug discovery generally, if you break that down into just the initial
drug discovery of the molecule, very difficult to predict which structures are going to have which effects,
whether it's toxicity or pharmacokinetic behavior, but then also predicting how they behave in an animal
model. Also, turns out mice aren't humans.
( 13:26 ):
So if some of these in silica models actually may be even better predictive than the animal models that
we use and trust today. And then even predicting the outcome of a clinical trial. And so I think that we're
really ripe for investments across all of those categories that I just described that we can get better and
better in predicting the outcomes using some of these AI capabilities and shorten those timelines from
bringing drugs forward from years, not decades to hopefully months or even weeks.

Speaker 2 ( 13:57 ):
What's that process look like? A billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it goes very quickly.

Speaker 1 ( 13:57 ):
True.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 13:57 ):
It goes very quickly.

Speaker 2 ( 14:01 ):
At the same time, what's the decision-making process?

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Renee Wegrzyn ( 14:03 ):
So what are those proofs of concepts? And I'll tell you, one of the biggest blockers that we have right
now is just access to data. And so this is something with every drug that is approved by the FDA, there's
just a small amount of the actual data that was generated around that molecule that's made available.
And so there's been some really interesting work around that. But we really want to try to see are there
ways that we can incentivize the drug companies to share some of that data in a pre-competitive way
that everybody can benefit and understand if similar molecules were used by others and that were not
successful, that can really accelerate the pipeline. So we're really focused on... I'm not convinced at least
that we can be completely successful doing what you said to that prediction and shortening this
timeframe unless we can get access to that data and really benefit everyone. And so what are those
incentives that we can create with pharma companies that would be really attractive and have them be
interested in working with us on projects like this?

Speaker 1 ( 15:05 ):
Tell us more about the ARPA Sprint for Women's Health. This is something we were looking forward to
hearing more about. It's a funding opportunity to address unmet challenges in women's health,
championing transformative innovations around issues that particularly affect women. I understand
you're committing $100 million to this effort. How's that going? What's fascinating to you in that
project?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 15:27 ):
Yeah, so I told you that a lot of what we've launched here, are either ideas from the outside or our
program managers come up with them. This one, this was me being a year and a half into this agency
being a woman and saying, "Why aren't we doing more in this area?" This is an underfunded area
generally. We didn't have a program manager in the pipeline who was really interested and focused on
this. So I thought, I can't be the only one that's frustrated by this. So I asked my program managers, is
anybody else frustrated by this and want to contribute? So from our existing team, we had six people
raise their hand and said, "Yes," also frustrated. And so with that group, we did a lot of ideation sessions
around what are topics that are uniquely ready for an ARPA type of injection of capital to advance the
state of the art?
( 16:16 ):
And so the topics that we've selected range from things like women's health at home. So thinking about
how many women don't go to their annual appointments because they're taking care of the kids or
they're going grocery shopping or they're at work. All of those apply to me, I know. And so how can we
push more even sample collection into the home or diagnostics or therapeutics? So that's one of the
calls that solicitation that went out. Other areas focused even on new models. So women weren't
included in clinical trials until the 90s. Female animals still aren't included in many preclinical studies
still, which is a huge-

Speaker 1 ( 16:16 ):
That I did not know.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 16:54 ):
Huge issue, yes, that disparity even exists at the level of the mice. And so not only do we have to look
prospectively of how are we including women, but how are we even making up for that massive gap in

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data for decades of clinical trials and preclinical studies? So what are those in silico models of the future,
but even potential organ on chip models of the future that would really help address here? I won't go
through all six topics, but just to give you the idea of these very different topics, each that is sponsored
by a program manager. And so I committed $100 million to this. And through our conversations, we also
heard a lot of exciting ideas from small companies who after we got all excited about their idea, they
said, "But we're never going to work with government because we're five people. We can't spend two
months writing a big grant. It's just off the table for us."
( 17:46 ):
And so in a little bit of back and forth conversations, what they're really good at is pitching venture,
which is a white paper and a pitch. You get 15 minutes maybe. So we restructured our pitch for
women's health that we have a three-pager white paper at the beginning. That's the submission. And
then we've just recently down-selected our 30-minute pitches. So we're going to invite a group of them
to pitch. And so we were so overwhelmed with the response that we got. So many small businesses
applied. So 42% of the applicants are businesses of less than 10 people, which is really a changing the
dynamics of who's applying for this effort. 45 states and 34 countries applied. So really excited. But
there's a story behind the story there. It's not just this sprint that I'm so excited about, but there's a
massive market here that I am... I'm like, we're catalyzing something that is a snowball that's really
ready for primetime. I'm so excited ARPA-H can play a role in starting to get that moving, but it is really a
special moment in time there.

Speaker 1 ( 18:59 ):
Wonderful.

Speaker 2 ( 19:00 ):
And I want to pull the thread on your commitment to diversity because you stress that all the time. And
you have an example of ARPA-H launching a new program at the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Talk a
little bit about the program itself and why did you choose to launch it at the nation and what other
efforts are you making in terms of reaching out to diverse communities?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 19:27 ):
So every new program that launches at ARPA-H, we have to answer these Heilmeier questions that
we've borrowed from DARPA, but we've also added our own. And so what's the problem you're trying to
solve? How's it done today? What's new in your approach? How much will it cost? How long will it take?
We've added questions. How are you going to address cost, accessibility, that customer experience, but
also trust and messaging? And so the program managers have to have a plan of how they're going to do
this. So Ross Uhrich, who's the program manager of NITRO, which is this osteoarthritis program. His
commitment was when we launched this program, we were going to require that the clinical trial that
comes at the end of the program will have to enroll a diverse cohort that is reflective of the actual
demographics of disease. And for osteoarthritis, it's majority female, but also a big preponderance of
Native American population.
( 20:18 ):
And so we reached out to Travel Nations and asked, "Would you be interested in working with us on
this? Five years is a long time, but we need to learn how to be culturally respectful and work with you."
And so not only did Ross kick off his program in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It was really exciting to engage
Cherokee Nation and actually was there at the kickoff. And I asked the room of the teams that were

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funding, "How many of you have ever been even to Oklahoma?" And less than half the room had. So we
really tried ARPA-H to get out into communities that they wouldn't normally be engaging, but generally
have that be a partnership. And then how we're going to lock that in is on the back end of his program
because we have something called Other Transactions. We can really negotiate terms and conditions
that are beneficial to the government, but also the parties that are proposing.
( 21:22 ):
And so what we've done is there's actually a 10-year period after the end of the program where the
federal government can actually buy in bulk any successful cellular therapeutics that come out of this
program to provide to communities that need it the most. This is no longer the $3 million cell therapy
that is coming out per dose that only very few of us, if any of us in this room can afford it. And really
trying to make sure that this is getting to those that need it the most. So innovation not just in the
technology, but even in the way that we do business.

Speaker 1 ( 21:57 ):
Well, and it's another one of your diversity initiatives. I think that we've been following some of the
leaders in the tribal nations about just the tremendous under representation of indigenous people in
medicine and nursing and all the health professions. And to have this focus really amazing. I think we
just have to follow you every day and see what is new. So I want to touch on one that I know very little
about, but sounded very important. An initiative looking at cell therapies for neuroinflammation and
neurodegeneration to develop strategies for more effective tissue-specific delivery of therapies. And I
took that straight from one of your papers because it's a complicated thing to describe, but this is a first
for you I understand, in the neurodegenerative conditions, again, something all people worry about as
time moves on. So how did that idea come out on top?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 22:50 ):
Yeah, so this is-

Speaker 1 ( 22:50 ):
Did you have six program managers?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 22:51 ):
I think you're talking about our CT neuro effort. So this is an example of an idea that came from the
outside. And so we do have an open solicitation that anybody who has a great idea can submit their idea
across, really any topic area. We will entertain the idea and if we're interested, start a conversation
around that. And in this one in particular, it's really looking at some of the toughest to reach parts of the
body, like the brain where I'm sure you've heard of the challenges of getting drugs across the blood-
brain barrier and biologics and other medicines. And this one is really focused on migrating cells across
the blood-brain barrier as a new way to deliver therapies for some of the most challenging cancers, as
an example. And so I'm not as close to that effort, but this is an example of one of those big ideas that is
pretty risky if you think about what that could look like.

Speaker 1 ( 23:46 ):
High yields in terms of the diseases that people are so concerned about, from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's
to other neurodegenerative diseases.

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Renee Wegrzyn ( 23:54 ):
We hear so much about stem cell therapies that could be promising in these areas. And so if successful,
this could be a first step towards treating some of those diseases.
Speaker 2 ( 24:03 ):
We've got so many exciting things on the horizon. AI, we've talked about, certainly CRISPR technology,
but these GLP-1 drugs I think are every day we're hearing a new discovery validated. How is that
impacting the work that you do? Because there's such a transformation going on in that industry. What's
the crosswalk back to your internal thinking and the priorities that you're developing?
Renee Wegrzyn ( 24:29 ):
So very crowded area right now, GLPs. But what's interesting about it, I'm sure you've also tracking, is
the massive supply chain issues that are associated with it. The demand is immediately.
Speaker 2 ( 24:41 ):
They can't produce enough of the medicine-
Renee Wegrzyn ( 24:43 ):
That's right.
Speaker 2 ( 24:43 ):
To deal with the needs.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 24:45 ):
That's right.
Speaker 1 ( 24:45 ):
And nobody comes off it for long periods of time. So just have a huge consumption.
Speaker 2 ( 24:53 ):
Well, is there an improvement in the making of the drugs, the process there?
Renee Wegrzyn ( 24:55 ):
Right. And just broadly, so we run into challenges in supply chain, GLP-1s are just one of them, but also
many other drugs we face these challenges. And so just this year we're launching a new office called
Scalable Solutions Office, and this is really focused on being able to manufacture at scale in a cost-
effective way, in a predictable way, that we're not subject to these supply chain issues so often. And
then also reaching all Americans at scale. So how do you get those drugs, those diagnostics into the
places where they need to be, whether it's a rural setting, whether it's into a pediatric population or
geriatric population. Each of those presents its own unique last mile challenge that we think is really,
really ripe for innovation.
( 25:42 ):

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And the leader that we brought in for that office, we don't even have program managers there yet, is
Jason Roos. And he came from Operation Warp Speed, which became H-Core at HHS. And then he also
worked really closely with the postmaster general on the project that delivered antigen tests to all of us.
So we can just get online and over the course of four weeks deliver, I think it was 6 million tests.

Speaker 1 ( 26:05 ):
That was pretty amazing.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 26:07 ):
Right. And what non-traditional thinking there. We want more of that for healthcare as you move
forward. And not to have to do that only in the moment of crisis. How do we have that be just a regular
way that we can start to deliver care to all Americans? Since we are massive country, not all of us are
really close to healthcare.

Speaker 1 ( 26:28 ):
Well, you have such a obvious level of optimism about this work. We know it's only been nine months,
the agency's only two years old. Biggest surprise so far? What did you not expect?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 26:40 ):
I've been just delighted with the caliber of the talent that we've been able to bring into the agency, from
the program managers to our contracting team that meet the level of creativity of our program
managers. Many of them have never been in government and have these big ideas, but would have no
idea how to execute that. I've also been very excited that they're all willing to be vaccinated with
antibodies against bureaucracy. So we looked for ways-

Speaker 1 ( 27:08 ):
Interesting. Where's that vaccine available?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 27:10 ):
I'm handing it out, so come get your dose. But that is... I'm trying to coach them to be as creative as
possible. But also there's a way federal government has done things for a very long time. It doesn't
mean it's the right way. And maybe there's a new way that we can try. Maybe it doesn't need to be 30
steps. Maybe we can do it in three steps. And so looking for ways not to cut corners, to keep quality and
safety, everything a top priority, but are there other ways that we can tackle this problem in a more
effective way?

Speaker 2 ( 27:42 ):
Renee, the last time we were together, I asked you about building bipartisan relationship and you were
working very hard, as hard as you are on the science. How's that going? Do we have the seam of
opportunity to bring people together and give us some updates on that?

Renee Wegrzyn ( 27:57 ):
Well, so after you and I talked last year, actually, I have a really concrete story. It involves Aspen. So I
had my panel last year after our conversation, and I saw Alex Azar in the audience. And so of course I

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was appointed by President Biden and Alex Azar was in our last administration, and he was actually...
When I saw him during the panel, I just clocked, okay, there he is. He was actually very against ARPA-H.

Speaker 1 ( 28:23 ):
Maybe that was the biggest surprise.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 28:25 ):
Well, afterwards, he listened to the panel. We bumped into each other just walking on campus here,
and he said, "You know what? You converted me because I can see the path forward and how you're
going to do business differently." And so this year we hosted a panel together, so he brought us
together. Isn't that wonderful?

Speaker 2 ( 28:46 ):
Absolutely.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 28:47 ):
And it's so important. And what I've learned over... And I think this I inherently knew, this is not a
surprise. All of us are impacted by something in health that impacts us personally, whether it's our own
disease, our child's disease, parents' disease, a loved one. Our business is impacted by health. And so
you could just look for that common ground and have a conversation about what are we going to do
about that together? And so I'm so optimistic. Everybody asks, "This is election year. What's going to
happen to ARPA-H?" I'm like, "We're going to continue, keep our heads down, do the good work." And I
haven't met a member yet that is opposed to the work that we're doing.

Speaker 2 ( 29:27 ):
It helps all Americans.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 29:28 ):
Yes, absolutely. That's what we're here for.

Speaker 1 ( 29:30 ):
So what are you doing to get the word out across the country? Because you've zeroed in on so many
compelling things, the pure science of tackling things like the neurodegenerative diseases, focusing on
populations who specifically are much more at risk, trying to do things in a different way, find that
creative, intellectually curious scientist in the making out there. How are people keeping up with you?
What should they be watching, following, reading? Do you have your own podcast? Tell everybody
about that.

Renee Wegrzyn ( 29:58 ):
Yes. We have our ARPA-H Vitals is our newsletter, and so really encourage folks to join. We have a
wonderful website that we update all the time. So really on a daily basis, we're even updating what's
happening in our programs. But ARPA-H Vitals is... You can go to the website, sign up, and it's every two
weeks we just, what's the latest and greatest? Not only what are the due dates of things to submit to,
but also here's a new program, here's a new program manager, or here's where we're going to be in the
country. Come meet us and learn a little bit about us.

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Speaker 1 ( 30:28 ):
And you're traveling around the country?
Renee Wegrzyn ( 30:29 ):
All the time. Yes.
Speaker 1 ( 30:31 ):
Great.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 30:31 ):
Yeah. Next program is cloning me and our program managers and then not needing to sleep, I think is
what's needed.
Speaker 1 ( 30:37 ):
Let us know when you solve that problem.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 30:39 ):
Right.
Speaker 2 ( 30:40 ):
Well, Renee, thank you so much for joining us today. Congratulations on all the work that the team at
ARPA-H is doing. It is such an exciting program, so exciting for all Americans, and we look forward to
seeing you next year to get another update. To all of our listeners, thanks so much for joining us. You
can follow us on CHC Radio. And Renee, again, thank you for being here.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 31:06 ):
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 ( 31:07 ):
Truly exciting, always to see you. Nine months.
Speaker 2 ( 31:10 ):
We're drinking the Kool-Aid.
Speaker 1 ( 31:11 ):
Absolutely.
Renee Wegrzyn ( 31:12 ):
Yes.
Speaker 1 ( 31:12 ):
We'll be following you.

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Renee Wegrzyn ( 31:13 ):
Fantastic. Thank you.
Speaker 1 ( 31:18 ):
This copyrighted program is produced by Conversations on Healthcare and cannot be reproduced or
retransmitted in whole or in part without the express written consent from Community Health Center
Inc. The views expressed by guests are their own, and they do not necessarily reflect the opinion of
conversations on healthcare or its affiliated entities.

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