Harness Biological Systems

This announcement seeks revolutionary research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing BTO programs or other published solicitations. Of particular interest are those proposals from entities (both small and large business) that have never received Government funding, or who do not normally propose to Government solicitations.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals of interest to the Biological Technologies Office (BTO). Proposed research should investigate leading edge approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, technologies, or systems at the intersection of biology with engineering and the physical and computer sciences. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of the art. BTO seeks unconventional approaches that are outside the mainstream, challenge assumptions, and have the potential to radically change established practice, lead to extraordinary outcomes, and create entirely new fields.

DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals to generate and evaluate novel biological tools and countermeasures that facilitate the safe pursuit of advanced genome editing applications, while reducing the risk of, and providing new protections against, potential engineered genetic threats. Proposed research should investigate radically different approaches to integrate biosafety and biosecurity features into new genome editing biotechnologies and their derivative applications at their inception.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is requesting information on the state-of-the-art in experimentally observing, modeling and understanding communication between biosystems exploiting electromagnetic (EM) waves from low frequencies (kHz) to high frequencies (THz).