New ARPA-H Director Outlines Cybersecurity, Innovation Agenda

Alicia Jackson, the new director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is making cybersecurity a top priority and opening new avenues for innovators to deliver emerging tech solutions just one month into the job. As director, Jackson is responsible for shaping ARPA-H’s research portfolio, setting program priorities and driving high-risk, high-reward initiatives.

“Since my arrival only one month ago, we’re back in business and taking the bull by the horns: we’ve launched and awarded efforts spanning the gamut of health, from distributed biomanufacturing of genetic medicines, to automated cyber patches for our embattled hospitals, to new tools that will make the United States the safest place to have a baby,” Jackson said on Tuesday in a letter to ARPA-H stakeholders.

Since her appointment on Oct. 20, ARPA-H launched a new initiative to bolster hospital cybersecurity. The Universal Patching and Remediation for Autonomous Defense (UPGRADE) program aims to give hospitals IT teams the tools to better detect and remediate cyber threats. Jackson said in a press release that the program will invest in “automated cyber defenses” that can scale to hospitals of all sizes.

“Cyberattacks on hospitals are now a direct threat to patient safety and the resilience of America’s health system,” said Jackson. “This is not a problem we can solve one device, one patch, or one hospital at a time — it demands the kind of bold, integrated approach that only an ARPA-level effort can deliver.”

UPGRADE program manager Andrew Carney said during GovCIO Media & Research’s Health IT Summit that the program will develop a vendor-agnostic, high-fidelity simulation environment that allows hospital IT teams to safely test new cybersecurity tools, including emerging AI-based capabilities.

“[Upgrade] is a vendor-agnostic, facility-agnostic approach to characterizing and then lifting into a high fidelity simulation that goes down into the hardware and software so you can actually test new products, maybe agentic AI-based,” Carney said. “You can test all that software in a high fidelity environment that matches your needs and your specific sort of deployments.”

Jackson is also opening new avenues for innovators to bring tech solutions into government. She invited researchers, start-ups and industry professionals to participate in the next Proposers’ Day on Dec. 11 to learn more about the open funding opportunities, ask questions and make connections.

“By convening and inspiring the best innovators from around the world, we strive to make the seemingly impossible not just possible, but probable,” Jackson said. “To do so, we need all of you. We need your ideas, your passion, your expertise.”