Up to $36.5M Funds ‘Cyborg’ Cell Project to Help Life-Saving Cell Therapies Travel Farther
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, has executed an award of up to $36.5 million in support of a University of California, Davis-led project aiming to make cellular therapies cheaper and more accessible through room temperature storage. Cheemeng Tan, a professor of biomedical engineering who focuses on cell engineering, leads the interdisciplinary research team with collaborators from Mayo Clinic, the University of Georgia and Case Western Reserve University.
“A cell therapy can only help a patient if the cells arrive ready to do their job,” Tan said. “If successful, our technology could reduce the cost and complexity of distribution and help make cell therapies more accessible to people in remote American communities and to patients abroad, strengthening the United States as a biomanufacturing hub.”
The Research Basis
In earlier laboratory work, Tan and his collaborators formed water-rich polymer networks inside living cells to create cell-material hybrids. This process, called intracellular gelation, forms a gel inside the cell capable of halting cell division while preserving cellular function. Tan has called this cellular product a “cyborg,” since the gelation combines living cells with synthetic materials.
Through the ARPA-H-funded project, called CYBORGEL, Tan and his collaborators will investigate whether this intracellular gelation process can be extended to reduce the cost and simplify the storage, transportation and delivery of cellular therapies. The researchers will also test whether CYBORGEL cells remain therapeutically useful after being returned to their original state.
The team aims to evaluate cellular therapies stored with the CYBORGEL process at UC Davis and Mayo Clinic. For instance, one study will test the effectiveness of reanimated CAR T cells for existing clinical trials on cancer immunotherapies. Another planned study will test placental mesenchymal stem cells used to treat spina bifida, a medical intervention being developed by UC Davis researchers through the first-of-its-kind CuRe Trial.
“This award gives us the opportunity to build on years of work in synthetic biology and test a bold idea: protecting living therapeutic cells from within so they can withstand room temperature storage and shipping,” Tan said.
A Collaborative Effort
The team will develop an automated processing system to prepare, preserve and reanimate cells in a closed environment. The project’s long-term goal is to enable room temperature storage of cellular therapies for more than three months with the CYBORGEL process.
Tan will oversee the project’s cell-stabilization research and overall scientific integration, with fellow UC Davis investigators Aijun Wang, a professor of biomedical engineering and surgery, and Gant Luxton, an adjunct associate professor of molecular and cellular biology, contributing their expertise in regenerative medicine and cell biology.
Collaborator Alexander Revzin, a professor of biomedical engineering at Mayo Clinic, will lead the development of the project’s automated processing system. In addition, Mayo Clinic collaborators Joao Passos and Diana Jurk will study cellular aging, stress and damage during CYBORGEL storage and recovery.
At the University of Georgia, collaborators Sergiy Minko and Vladimir Popik will develop reversible polymer materials, while Case Western Reserve University investigator Harihara Baskaran, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, will lead modeling of cell loading and transport to guide device design and development.
Accelerator programs at UC Davis and Mayo Clinic will provide support and guidance to expedite the commercialization of the CYBORGEL platform. Industry partners from Tetramer and Sersense will provide polymer production and device development support.
Federal Support
ARPA-H is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It supports the development of high-impact solutions to society's most challenging health problems, delivering health breakthroughs in years, not decades.
The CYBORGEL project is funded through ARPA-H’s BioStabilization Systems, or BoSS, program, which the agency launched in 2025 to support research reducing dependence on specialized and expensive cold storage and transportation infrastructure that could enable lower costs for cell-based drugs, reduce the risk of therapeutic and pharmaceutical product losses and enable domestic reserves for public health preparedness.
“Many of the newest therapeutics on the market rely on very cold storage temperatures, which contribute to unacceptably ballooning price tags,“ said BoSS Program Manager Gloria Elliott. “If we can eliminate the need for deep freezing, it will unlock the full, life-changing potential of cell-based therapies for patients who currently do not have access to them.”
The initial round of funding for CYBORGEL is up to $6 million, with a total funding pool of up to $36.5 million possible over the next four years.
“Our project aims to address a long-standing barrier to keeping therapeutic cells stable and functional during storage and shipping,” Tan said. “I think of it as a challenge we share with space exploration: The farther we want to send living systems, the better we must protect them along the way. If successful, our technology could reduce the cost and complexity of distribution and help make cell therapies more accessible.”