Restore and Maintain Warfighter Abilities

The ADEPT program aims to create the technology base required to help medical professionals outpace the spread of natural or engineered diseases and toxins.

Battlefield logistics are a challenge regardless of the mission. Adversaries, terrain, and the environment can all serve to complicate the process of delivering supplies to warfighters. The current Department of Defense (DoD) approach to medical supply logistics is limited in its reach to far-forward emergency settings, response to emergent in-theater threats, and utility for bio-preparedness stockpiling. It can often take weeks to months to manufacture and airlift organic pharmaceuticals and protein therapeutics to battlefield frontlines, meaning that critical medical supplies often do not arrive in time where they are needed most.

As a result of combat exposure, warfighters may return home from deployments with psychological health challenges and find it difficult to reconnect with family and society at large. According to the Department of Veteran Affairs’ National Center for PTSD, studies show that between 12 and 25 percent of military personnel who had returned from Afghanistan and Iraq as of 2008 may suffer from PTSD. (1) Despite best efforts to improve awareness and care, additional studies reveal that only a small fraction of warfighters seek help dealing with psychological health issues.

Overwhelming infection of the bloodstream, or bacteremia, impacted more than 1,500 servicemembers in 2009 alone.

The ElectRx program aims to establish a new biomedical, therapeutic capability to improve physical and mental health by using targeted stimulation of the peripheral nervous system to exploit the body’s natural ability to quickly and effectively heal itself.