Intelligent Generator of Research (IGoR) - ISO

The Intelligent Generator of Research (IGoR) program, solicited under ARPA-H-SOL-26-155, is an Innovative Solutions Opening (ISO) structured as an Other Transaction (OT) Agreement under 42 U.S.C. § 290c(g)(1)(D), aimed at transforming biomedical research through an AI-enabled, interoperable ecosystem designed to accelerate therapeutic discovery by at least tenfold. The program seeks to develop four integrated components: mechanistic disease models encoding causal biological relationships across scales, an AI orchestration layer to identify knowledge gaps and design optimal experiments, a layered protocol architecture ensuring reproducible execution by any qualified lab, and a distributed marketplace of validated laboratories to generate gold-standard data. The initiative is a five-year, three-phase effort with technical work confined to cell/tissue culture and lower-level invertebrate models; vertebrate studies are permitted only for hypothesis validation under direct human oversight, and human clinical trials are explicitly out of scope. Proposals must comprehensively address all four Technical Areas and all three phases, with Phase III requiring scaling to a second disease area, operation of a unified experiment marketplace, and public release of all computational artifacts. Proposals must be submitted via the ARPA-H Solutions portal by August 6, 2026, and must conform to strict formatting guidelines, including English language, 11-point sans serif font, and 8.5 by 11-inch pages with one-inch margins. All proposers must maintain an active SAM.gov registration with a valid UEI and designated Electronic Business Point of Contact, and must certify their organization type (for-profit, non-profit, or academia) and disclose involvement of human or animal subjects. Technical and management proposals, along with a price proposal structured in three phases and supported by a detailed Basis of Estimate, must be submitted as specified in Appendix C, which has been amended to remove phase durations from the labor tab and refine the submission format. Price proposals must include fully burdened labor rates, itemized equipment costs (with backup for items over $10,000), justified travel, other direct costs, indirect costs, and profit/fee, and must account for all resource sharing contributions from both the performer and government, with total prices reflecting these combined values. Evaluation prioritizes scientific and technical merit, proposer capability, alignment with ARPA-H’s mission, and cost reasonableness, with awards going to the most advantageous submissions. Following award, performers must register with the Payment Management System within ten