Threat Awareness identifies, assesses and prioritizes chemical and biological risks and threats to enable planning, response, countermeasures and remediation. Significant contributions in the field include robust laboratory studies to characterize biological agents and evaluate mitigation procedures to their release ; “first of its kind” field testing to characterize behavior of large scale releases of toxic industrial chemicals; real-time decision support tools for planning and response and a comprehensive knowledge repository of threat information and 24/7 subject matter expert reachback support.

The Biodefense Knowledge Center provides expertise and information about biological sciences and bio-threats for DHS components and multiple federal, state and local government agencies. Its expertise and products bridge science, technology, intelligence, public health and law enforcement.

The Biological Threat Characterization Program conducts high quality life science studies to understand the threat from traditional and emerging biological agents to inform and influence preparedness and response plans and operational decisions when responding to a biological agent attack. This includes evaluation of Biological agent characteristics to facilitate hazard assessments; assess environmental stability of threat agents; and identify effectiveness of detection and decontamination methodologies against live agent matrices.