ARPA-H Is Spending $144 Million to Get Microplastics Out of Your Body. Here's How to Compete for It.

Microplastics have been found in human lungs, arterial plaques, placental tissue, and brain matter. The scientific community can document their presence with increasing precision — but cannot yet agree on how to measure them consistently, what concentrations cause harm, or how to get them out. On April 2, ARPA-H announced it intends to solve all three problems at once, committing $144 million over five years to a program called STOMP: Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics.

Full proposals are due June 22, 2026. Solution summaries — required before a full proposal will be accepted — are due May 6. For researchers in biomedical engineering, toxicology, analytical chemistry, materials science, and environmental health, this is one of the largest single-program funding commitments ARPA-H has ever made for a non-disease-specific health threat.

The Measurement Problem Is the Whole Problem

The reason STOMP exists is deceptively simple: no one can reliably measure microplastics in human tissue. Different labs using different methods on identical samples produce wildly divergent results. Without standardized measurement, every downstream question — dose-response relationships, organ-specific accumulation patterns, intervention efficacy — remains unanswerable.

STOMP's first phase, spanning 24 months, attacks this directly. Performers will develop lab-based measurement techniques capable of accurately characterizing nano-sized microplastic particles in biological tissue, plus imaging and characterization methods for microplastics in animal organs and cells. The CDC will serve as an independent validator, establishing the kind of inter-laboratory reproducibility that the field currently lacks.

This isn't just academic infrastructure. The program explicitly aims to produce a clinical test — something a doctor could order — that quantifies an individual's microplastic burden. That test doesn't exist today. If STOMP delivers it, the implications cascade: population-level screening, occupational exposure monitoring, clinical trial endpoints for removal therapies, and eventually regulatory standards for acceptable exposure levels.

"A key first step is to measure microplastics accurately and understand how they reach different organ systems," said Program Manager Ileana Hancu, Ph.D. The phrasing is deliberate — ARPA-H is framing measurement not as preliminary work but as the rate-limiting step for the entire field.

Phase Two: From Detection to Removal

Once measurement tools exist, STOMP's second phase pivots to intervention. Performers will design therapies and technologies to remove microplastics from the human body, drawing on pharmaceutical science, bioremediation, and novel filtration approaches. A third technical area — focused specifically on removal technologies — will be solicited separately after Phase One concludes, giving researchers time to build on validated measurement data before proposing interventions.

The two-phase structure matters for grant strategy. Teams that win Phase One measurement contracts will have an enormous advantage in Phase Two removal competitions: they'll own the validated tools that any removal therapy must use to prove efficacy. If you're a lab with strong analytical chemistry capabilities but no therapeutic development experience, Phase One is still worth pursuing — it positions you as an essential collaborator for Phase Two teams.

ARPA-H structures its awards as contracts, not grants. That distinction is load-bearing. Contract funding is contingent on meeting aggressive research milestones, and ARPA-H program managers actively steer technical direction throughout the performance period. Teams accustomed to the relative autonomy of NIH R01 grants should expect a fundamentally different management relationship.

Why RFK Jr. and ARPA-H Agree on This

STOMP sits at a rare intersection of political support. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made environmental toxins a signature issue, and microplastics fit cleanly into his public health agenda. "Americans deserve clear answers about how microplastics in their bodies affect their health," Kennedy said in the announcement. ARPA-H Director Alicia Jackson framed the urgency in starker terms: "Microplastics are in every organ we look at — in ourselves and in our children."

That bipartisan appeal — environmental health concern from the right, public health infrastructure from the left — gives STOMP unusual political durability. In a funding environment where programs regularly get zeroed out in presidential budget requests, STOMP's alignment with the current administration's stated priorities provides a degree of insulation that most ARPA-H programs don't enjoy.

This political positioning also connects to a broader ARPA-H pattern. The agency's PROSPR program, announced in February, committed another $144 million to aging research — treating biological aging itself as a targetable condition. Together, STOMP and PROSPR represent $288 million in ARPA-H funding directed not at specific diseases but at systemic health threats that cross traditional NIH institute boundaries. That's a strategic signal: ARPA-H is carving out a niche in threats too diffuse for any single NIH institute to own.

Who Should Apply

STOMP's eligibility is broad. ARPA-H hasn't restricted applications to universities or nonprofits — industry, national laboratories, and international partners can all propose. But the program managers have emphasized that "teaming will be necessary." The technical scope spans analytical chemistry, materials science, biomedical imaging, toxicology, clinical diagnostics, and eventually drug development or bioremediation engineering. No single lab covers all of that.

The strongest proposals will assemble teams that bridge the measurement-to-intervention gap. A few profiles that fit naturally:

Analytical chemistry and materials characterization labs with experience in nanoparticle detection, spectroscopy (Raman, FTIR, mass spectrometry), or single-particle analysis. These groups are the backbone of Phase One.

Biomedical imaging centers capable of visualizing micro- and nanoscale particles in tissue sections. Correlative light-electron microscopy, synchrotron-based imaging, and advanced fluorescence techniques are all relevant.

Toxicology and exposure science groups that can design animal studies linking microplastic burden to organ-specific pathology. STOMP needs mechanism data, not just detection data.

Clinical diagnostics companies with experience bringing laboratory-developed tests through validation and eventually FDA clearance. The clinical test is the headline deliverable — someone has to build it.

Pharmaceutical and bioremediation companies should monitor Phase One closely and prepare Phase Two proposals. Chelation chemistry, targeted nanoparticles, filtration devices, and engineered biological systems are all plausible removal modalities.

The Timeline Is Tight

Solution summaries are due May 6, 2026 — just one week from today. ARPA-H requires these before accepting full proposals, and proposers who don't receive encouragement after the summary review are discouraged from submitting. The full proposal deadline is June 22.

That compressed timeline is intentional. ARPA-H moves faster than traditional funding agencies, and the summary-then-proposal structure is designed to filter early. If you haven't started assembling a team, the May 6 deadline is aggressive but not impossible — solution summaries are shorter documents that outline technical approach and team composition without requiring the full detail of a proposal.

The solicitation is posted on SAM.gov under Notice ID ARPA-H-SOL-26-152, with full details on the ARPA-H Solutions portal.

What This Means for the Field

STOMP's $144 million commitment will reshape microplastics research regardless of which teams win. The program's insistence on standardized, CDC-validated measurement methods will force the field toward reproducibility — a prerequisite for the regulatory frameworks that don't yet exist. The clinical diagnostic test, if successful, will generate population-level exposure data for the first time, likely revealing that microplastic burden varies dramatically by occupation, geography, diet, and socioeconomic status.

For grant seekers outside the immediate STOMP competition, the program signals where adjacent funding will flow. NIH institutes — particularly NIEHS and NHLBI — will likely launch complementary programs once standardized measurement tools exist. EPA's research office will need exposure assessment methods for regulatory standard-setting. Occupational safety agencies will need workplace monitoring protocols. STOMP is the first domino.

The health effects of microplastics may turn out to be modest, or they may turn out to be profound. Either way, the inability to measure them consistently has kept the question unanswerable. ARPA-H is betting $144 million that the measurement problem is solvable — and that solving it will unlock everything else. For researchers positioned at the intersection of analytical science and human health, tools like Granted can help you identify where your expertise fits into this rapidly expanding funding landscape.