ARPA-H Invests $135.7M to Decode the Body's Lymphatic Highway

The human lymphatic system manages immune response, fluid balance, and fat absorption across every major organ — yet medicine has lacked basic tools to see it, measure it, or detect when it fails. ARPA-H just committed $135.7 million over five years to change that.

Medicine's Most Expensive Blind Spot

The LIGHT program (Lymphatic Imaging, Genomics, and pHenotyping Technologies) has selected 11 research teams to build the first comprehensive diagnostic toolkit for the lymphatic system. Unlike the cardiovascular system, which benefits from decades of sophisticated imaging and well-understood biomarkers, lymphatic dysfunction has remained a clinical blind spot linked to conditions ranging from lymphedema to cancer metastasis.

"The lymphatic system touches every major organ in your body, yet we've had no good way to see it, measure it, or understand when it's failing," said ARPA-H Director Alicia Jackson.

Three Diagnostic Pillars

The program is organized around three categories of tools. Advanced imaging techniques — spanning MRI, ultrasound, CT, and photoacoustic methods — will visualize lymphatic vessels and nodes non-invasively for the first time at clinical resolution. Genetic and cell-based diagnostic panels will identify lymphatic dysfunction at the molecular level. And AI-driven biomarker discovery systems will flag early signs of disease before symptoms appear.

Teams from Columbia University, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Hospital for Special Surgery are among the 11 institutions building these tools. The five-year timeline gives teams room to move from proof-of-concept through clinical validation.

New Research Verticals for AI and Imaging Investigators

Lymphatic dysfunction is implicated in autoimmune disease, chronic inflammation, and cancer metastasis, yet the field has been starved for research infrastructure. This $135.7 million investment could create entirely new funding pathways for investigators working at the intersection of computational biology, medical imaging, and immunology.

Researchers in biomedical AI, imaging physics, and diagnostic development should monitor these teams for collaboration and subcontracting opportunities as projects scale. Granted can help identify complementary federal and foundation funding in adjacent fields. More detailed coverage of ARPA-H's health technology investments is available on the Granted blog.