Biological Technologies Office (BTO)

The Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program aims to mitigate the effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in military Service members by developing neurotechnologies to facilitate memory formation and recall in the injured brain. More than 270,000 Service members have been diagnosed with TBI since 20001. The condition frequently results in an impaired ability to retrieve memories formed prior to injury and a reduced capacity to form or retain new memories following injury. Despite the scale of the problem, few effective therapies currently exist to mitigate the long-term consequences of TBI on memory. Enabling restoration of memory function would support military readiness by providing injured personnel the option of returning to duty, and would improve quality of life for wounded veterans. More

Mosquitoes transmit pathogens that cause dengue, malaria, and other diseases that present significant risks to the readiness and resilience of military personnel, and public health more generally. The ReVector program aims to maintain the health of military personnel operating in disease-endemic regions by reducing attraction and feeding by mosquitoes. More

Thanks to improvements in body armor and combat casualty care, military Service members are now surviving severe battlefield injuries that involve traumatic limb amputation. However, because these survivors are predominantly young, they must live with their injuries for decades. This severely diminishes affected individuals’ quality of life and places a massive responsibility on the military's medical and rehabilitation system. More

The Safe Genes program supports force protection and military health and readiness by protecting Service members from accidental or intentional misuse of genome editing technologies. Additional work will leverage advances in gene editing technology to expedite development of advanced prophylactic and therapeutic treatments against gene editors. Advances within the program will ensure the United States remains at the vanguard of the broadly accessible and rapidly progressing field of genome editing. More

The Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS) program aims to improve force health by using neurotechnology as the basis for effective, informed, and precise treatments for neuropsychiatric illnesses in military Service members. The effects of such illnesses, brought on by war, traumatic injuries, and other experiences, remain challenging to treat. Current treatment approaches—surgery, medications, and psychotherapy—can often help to alleviate the worst effects of illnesses such as major depression and post-traumatic stress, but they are imprecise and not universally effective. Through SUBNETS, DARPA seeks to generate the knowledge and technology required to deliver relief to patients with otherwise intractable neuropsychiatric illness. More