The Response and Recovery program focuses on returning things to normal following a chemical or biological incident. This involves the development of plans, , technologies, capabilities, and tools for remediation, as well as forensic capabilities to aid in the investigation, prosecution and prevention of future incidents. The goal is to put decision support tools into the hands of urban and rural emergency planners and first responders.

The program also develops medical countermeasures to mitigate threats to agriculture. Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease that affects cattle, swine and other split-hoofed species. An introduction of FMD would significantly impact both the U.S. food supply and the economy. The Foreign Animal Disease Vaccines and Diagnostics project focuses on mitigating these impacts through rapid diagnostics capabilities and safe vaccine production to prevent the potential spread of an outbreak.

A high-priority need expressed by the Transportation Security Administration and municipal transit systems is the ability to rapidly recover from a biological incident. The Underground Transport Restoration project is working to improve capabilities to rapidly identify a biological agent, prevent spread and clean-up and decontaminate all surfaces and physical structures (e.g. tunnels, stations, air handling systems) and rolling stock (e.g., subway cars).