Advances in Bioscience for Airmen Performance

Agency:        Air Force Research Laboratory

Number:        BAA-09-02-RH

Deadline:       Continuous until 30 SEP 2014

URL: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do;jsessionid=KzVpKMbGx3Qp27NQYhm9QSvd1Dm2hZ18xnS1n6w3hWvHJhXLJMGB!2132672093?oppId=49718&mode=VIEW

The 711th Human Performance Wing, Human Effectiveness Directorate is soliciting white papers under this announcement for innovative science and technology projects to support advanced bioscience research.  Specifically, the Biosciences and Performance Division is seeking unique and innovative research concepts that address its technical mission areas.  Research is sought primarily in the following four technical areas: 1) Applied Biotechnology, 2) Biobehavioral Performance, 3) Biomechanics, and 4) Counterproliferation.  The purpose of this BAA is to augment core research activities and facilities to provide radically new military capabilities that improve warfighter performance and combat effectiveness.  The research will provide for a broad range of revolutionary and evolutionary technologies to meet the critical needs of the warfighter for full dimensional protection, survivability, and performance enhancement.    The following sections provide further details of each research area:

1.    Applied Biotechnology - Goal is to develop and exploit advances in biotechnology and associated nanotechnologies to enhance performance and situational awareness of the force.

Ÿ  Application and integration of transcript, protein, and metabolite identification techniques to isolate unique biomarker signatures after low-level and threshold exposure concerns of toxic compounds or stressors of cognitive performance.

Ÿ  Application and integration of transcriptomics, proteomics and metabonomics, and advanced bioinformatics to identify performance enhancement measures and provide optimal state for mission training conditions and deployed mission performance.

Ÿ  Gene expression balance, protein expression patterns, metabolite content identification/changes, and other molecular methods that indicate cognitive and physical readiness for training and operational missions. 

Ÿ  Identification of phenotypic patterns to be used for the development, validation, and down-selection of predictive protein biomarkers of optimal mission-ready mental and physical states.

Ÿ  Synthetic biology and other aspects of cellular dynamics for systems engineering that capitalize on emerging developments in cognitive, biological, informational and nano sciences.

2.    Biobehavioral Performance – Goal is to develop bio-based methods and techniques to sustain and optimize airmen’s cognitive performance.

Ÿ  Identification of individuals who are resistant to the effects of various stressors and countermeasures on cognitive performance and physiological stamina.  Environments include both training and operations. 

Ÿ  Development of effective, reliable, and affordable alertness management, performance enhancing and emotional state modulation technologies.  Includes non-medical neuroscience and biochemical pathway techniques.

Ÿ  Conversely, the chemical pathway area could include methods to degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive capabilities.

Ÿ  Development and exploitation of external stimulant technology to enable the airman to maintain focus on aerospace tasks and to receive and process greater amounts of operationally relevant information.

Ÿ  Exploitation of advanced imaging technologies for the evaluation of brain activity during aerospace operations.             

3.    Vulnerability Analysis – Goal is to rapidly identify human threat conditions, and sustain/expand Airmen performance in stressful environments.  It includes research in physical and physiological biosignatures, neuroscience, anthropometry, biomechanics, human modeling, database networking, and data mining.

Ÿ  Develop a new human threat awareness, visualization and risk assessment capability for the individual airman in theater and the airbase perimeter security control center by developing technologies to anticipate, find, fix, track, identify, characterize human intent and physiological status anywhere and at anytime

Ÿ  Develop capability for Special Operations Forces to rapidly identify human-borne threats and enhance visualization information for decision-making by establishing modeling framework that fuses multiple human sensing modalities

Ÿ  Develop the capability for the Air Force to discover and rapidly answer critical human threat and performance questions without testing or experimentation.  This is done through developing innovative techniques and tools for 1) searching and discovery of new correlations among performance and injury data sets through data mining, 2) integration of risk and performance assessment tools with on-line models, and 3) expansion, organization, and linkage of human response data into the AFRL Collaborative Biomechanics Data Network (CBDN)

Ÿ  Apply human physical, biological, and psychological attributes to develop designs/strategies that improve mission-related performance and protection in stressful and restricted operational environments.  This is done through 1) defining relationships among human physiological, biological, and psychological responses and performance, 2) defining mechanisms and processes that alter responses and influence performance, 3) identifying environment designs and strategies that employ effective mechanisms and processes for improving performance and protection

Ÿ  Major research facilities for human testing include a six degree-of-freedom vibration system, 3-D biosignatures laboratory, horizontal impulse accelerator, a vertical deceleration tower, and a computerized anthropometric whole-body scanning system

4.    Counterproliferation – Goal is to improve the Air Force’s ability to locate, identify, track, target, and destroy biological warfare agents (BWA) and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), as well as anticipate and mitigate WMD effects on AF operations.

Ÿ  Research to identify, isolate, and characterize metabolic pathways involved in microbial pathogenesis, in order to develop better methods to neutralize BWA/WMD. 

Ÿ  Research to increase the capability to locate, identify, and track BWA/WMD.

Ÿ  Research in biological, physical, and chemical technologies to determine the viability of BWA/WMD and increase the capability to neutralize them.

Ÿ  Research to understand the effects of microorganisms on materials of interest to the Air Force and interactions between host organisms, antimicrobials, and materials.

Ÿ  Research to anticipate, interdict, and mitigate the effects of BWA/WMD on Air Force operations and missions.

USAMRMC Broad Agency Announcement

Agency:        United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command

Number:        W81XWH-BAA10-1

Deadline:       Continuous until 30 SEP 2010

URL:             http://www.usamraa.army.mil/pages/baa_paa/mrmcbaalist.cfm

The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's (USAMRMC) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 10-1 is available.  The USAMRMC's mission is to provide solutions to medical problems of importance to the American warfighter at home and abroad.  The scope of this effort and the priorities attached to specific projects are influenced by changes in military and civilian medical science and technology, operational requirements, military threat assessments, and national defense strategies.  The extramural research and development program plays a vital role in the fulfillment of the objectives established by the Command.  The USAMRMC's BAA is intended to solicit research ideas, and is issued under the provisions of the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-369), as implemented in the Federal Acquisition Regulations.  This is a continuously open announcement; preproposals must be submitted electronically and will be evaluated at any time throughout the year, unless timeframes are stated in a separate announcement.  The electronic preproposal form is located at www.usamraa.army.mil under the BAA button.

Naval health research center broad agency announcement

Agency:        United States Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command

Deadline:       30 APR 2011

URL:             https://www3.natick.army.mil/nhrcbaa.html

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is intended to fulfill requirements for scientific study and experimentation directed toward advancing state-of-the-art technologies, and/or increasing knowledge and understanding as a means of eliminating current technology barriers. This BAA DOES NOT focus on specific systems or hardware solutions. This BAA identifies NHRC research/exploratory development areas of interest, and provides prospective offeror’s information on the preparation of proposals, along with proposal evaluation factors.

Areas of Interest:

- Medical Modeling, Simulation & Mission Support

- Warfighter Performance

- Behavioral Sciences & Epidemiology

- Deployment Health Research

- Respiratory Diseases Research

- HIV/AIDS Prevention Program

- Medical Science

- Biomedical Translational Initiative

- Warfighter Systems Technology

- Advanced Technology

U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center Broad Agency announcement: warfighter Systems Technology program

Agency:        Natick

Deadline:       Proposals may be submitted at any time after the concept paper has been approved and up until the BAA closing date of 31 March 2011     

URL:             https://www3.natick.army.mil/nsrdecbaa.html

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is intended to fulfill requirements for scientific study and experimentation directed toward advancing state-of the-art technologies, and/or increasing knowledge and understanding as a means of eliminating current technology barriers. 

Scientific and Technical Area of Interest:

Warrior Performance

Warrior Performance is the degree to which a Warfighter’s skills and abilities are implemented for a particular task or set of tasks. It is specific to the military operational environment.  There are on-going efforts to generate data in the area of human factors as it relates to Warrior Performance, however, most of these efforts relate to the physical aspects of performance.  Though significant work is being done through these efforts more work remains in order to gain a complete picture of the relationship of the warrior to his/her environment.  Concentration on the cognitive aspects of individual warrior performance is lagging.  Significant work still remains to be done in this area as well. The objective of this area of study is to generate methodologies as well as relevant data that can be applied directly to the development of emerging warrior systems with equal emphasis on physical and cognitive performance and can be utilized by emerging behavioral models for the same purpose. The warrior performance target audience includes male and female: Dismounted Infantry, Mounted Infantry, Engineers, SOF, Medics, Army Aircrew and Military Police.

Communication with the Technical POC prior to submission of a formal proposal is essential.  Technical POC: Mr. Jason Augustyn, 508-233-6324, Jason.Augustyn@us.army.mil.