Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyNews

News

With more than 200 different programs across the spectrum of science and engineering, DARPA frequently has news to share. We regularly announce the launch of new programs, contract awards and—most exciting—compelling results from our ongoing research. We strive to report on our work and activities in language that can be understood and appreciated by the full range of individuals in military and civilian positions interested in our work—from technical experts with a need to know, to people who simply find our mission important and our accomplishments fascinating.

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DARPA-funded researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California have demonstrated the first successful implementation in humans of a proof-of-concept system for restoring memory function by facilitating memory encoding using the patient’s own neural codes. The stimulation did not replace normal activity in the volunteers’ brains, but supplemented it, giving a boost to natural memory function. Using the RAM technology, volunteers in the study demonstrated up to 37 percent improvement in short-term, working memory over baseline levels. (DARPA image courtesy of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center)
3/28/2018

Progress in Quest to Develop a Human Memory Prosthesis

DARPA launched the Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program in November 2013 with the goal of developing a fully implantable, closed-loop neural interface capable of restoring normal memory function to military personnel suffering from the effects of brain injury or illness. Just over four years later, the program is returning remarkable results.
| Health | Med-Devices | Neuroscience | Restoration |

Image caption: DARPA's Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program aims to develop a high-resolution, portable neural interface system capable of reading from and writing to multiple points in the brain at once. Such a noninvasive system would extend the power of advanced neurotechnology to able-bodied individuals and could support future Department of Defense efforts to improve human-machine teaming.
3/16/2018

Nonsurgical Neural Interfaces Could Significantly Expand Use of Neurotechnology

Over the past two decades, the international biomedical research community has demonstrated increasingly sophisticated ways to allow a person's brain to communicate with a device, allowing breakthroughs aimed at improving quality of life, such as access to computers and the internet, and more recently control of a prosthetic limb. DARPA has been at the forefront of this research.
| Communications | Interface | Neuroscience |

Making Gray-Zone Activity more Black and White
3/14/2018

Making Gray-Zone Activity more Black and White

An emergent type of conflict in recent years has been coined “gray zone,” because it sits in a nebulous area between peace and conventional warfare. Gray-zone action is not openly declared or defined, it’s slower, and is prosecuted more subtly—using social, psychological, religious, information, cyber and other means to achieve physical or cognitive objectives with or without violence. The lack of clarity of intent—the grayness—makes it challenging to detect, characterize, and counter an enemy fighting this way.
| AI |

Image Caption: DARPA’s Biostasis program aims to prevent death following traumatic injury by slowing biochemical reactions inside cells, thus extending the “golden hour” for medical intervention. The desired interventions would be effective for only limited durations before the process reverts and biological processes resume at normal speeds.
3/1/2018

Slowing Biological Time to Extend the Golden Hour for Lifesaving Treatment

When a Service member suffers a traumatic injury or acute infection, the time from event to first medical treatment is usually the single most significant factor in determining the outcome between saving a life or not. First responders must act as quickly as possible, first to ensure a patient’s sheer survival and then to prevent permanent disability. The Department of Defense refers to this critical, initial window of time as the “golden hour,” but in many cases the opportunity to successfully intervene may extend much less than sixty minutes, which is why the military invests so heavily in moving casualties as rapidly as possible from the battlefield to suitable medical facilities.
| Chemistry | Health | Therapy |

Image Caption: The Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program aims to support military readiness and global stability through pursuit of novel methods to dramatically accelerate discovery, integration, pre-clinical testing, and manufacturing of medical countermeasures against infectious diseases.
2/22/2018

DARPA Names Researchers Working to Halt Outbreaks in 60 Days or Less

The increasing threat of infectious diseases is intensifying the need for breakthrough technologies and capabilities to protect first responders and equip them with therapeutics that can halt the impact of infectious agents. Current approaches for recent public health emergencies due to infectious diseases have not produced effective preventive or therapeutic solutions in a relevant timescale. Examples from recent outbreaks such as H3N2 (flu), Ebola, and Zika viruses highlight the significant lag in deployment and efficacy of life-saving solutions.
| Countermeasures | Disease | Health | Therapy |

DARPA Seeks to Expand Real-Time Radiological Threat Detection to Include Other Dangers
2/20/2018

DARPA Seeks to Expand Real-Time Radiological Threat Detection to Include Other Dangers

Advanced commercially available technologies—such as additive manufacturing (3-D printing), small-scale chemical reactors for pharmaceuticals, and CRISPR gene-manipulation tools—have opened wide access to scientific exploration and discovery. In the hands of terrorists and rogue nation states, however, these capabilities could be misused to concoct chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in small quantities and in form factors that are hard to detect.
| Analytics | CBRN | Chemistry | Sensors |

Image Caption: The potential threats posed by unfamiliar bacteria can evade state-of-the-art forensics technology, which requires existing knowledge of a bacterium’s function or biochemical makeup. DARPA's new Friend or Foe program aims to develop a platform technology that rapidly screens unfamiliar bacteria to establish their pathogenicity and even discover unknown pathogenic traits, necessary first steps for designing effective biosurveillance and countermeasures.
2/7/2018

Playing 20 Questions with Bacteria to Distinguish Harmless Organisms from Pathogens

Bacteria underpins much of our world, acting behind the scenes to affect the health and behavior of animals and plants. They help produce food, provide oxygen, and even reshape the environment through a vast array of biological processes. They come in a phenomenal number of strains—many still unknown—and thrive in different ecological and environmental niches all over the world. But while their diverse behaviors makes them essential to life, bacteria can also be deadly.
| CBRN | Countermeasures | Disease | Sensors |

PALS Turns to Marine Organisms to Help Monitor Strategic Waters
2/2/2018

PALS Turns to Marine Organisms to Help Monitor Strategic Waters

The world’s vast oceans and seas offer seemingly endless spaces in which adversaries of the United States can maneuver undetected. The U.S. military deploys networks of manned and unmanned platforms and sensors to monitor adversary activity, but the scale of the task is daunting and hardware alone cannot meet every need in the dynamic marine environment. Sea life, however, offers a potential new advantage. Marine organisms are highly attuned to their surroundings—their survival depends on it—and a new program out of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office aims to tap into their natural sensing capabilities to detect and signal when activities of interest occur in strategic waters such as straits and littoral regions.
| Bio-complexity | Maritime | Sensors |