Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA)
February 12, 2019
The Biological Technologies Office (BTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is sponsoring a Proposers Day for the planned proposer community in support of the Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA) program. The MBA program will help improve how the individual warfighter identifies, measures, and tracks personalized biomarkers to help achieve new levels of performance for specialized roles throughout their career. This will ultimately build a more capable military force founded upon a better understanding of each person. A Proposers Day will be held on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, at the ECC in Arlington, VA. Advanced registration is required.
The Proposers Day objectives are:
- To encourage and promote teaming agreements among organizations that have the relevant expertise, research facilities and capabilities for executing research and development responsive to the MBA program goals
- To introduce the science and technology community (industry, academia, government, etc.) to the MBA program vision
- To facilitate information exchange between the DARPA MBA program management team and potential program investigators
The Proposers Day will include brief overview presentations by government personnel, an information session to respond to questions from participants, a poster session, “lightning” talks (three minutes, one PowerPoint slide) and private sidebar meetings between the DARPA government team and potential proposer teams. Participant presentations and poster sessions must be scheduled via the registration website.
DARPA encourages participation in the MBA program and at the Proposers Day by all eligible applicants, including non-traditional performers, academic institutions, not-for-profit institutes, and industrial partners of all sizes. Attendance at this event is not a requirement for submission of a proposal or selection for funding. Information relayed during the Proposers Day will be made available on the BTO section of the DARPA Opportunities Page: http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities
Program Objective and Description
The U.S. military is experiencing shortages of highly qualified candidates for specialized roles including aviation and close combat forces. If successful, the Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA) program will address a loss in force readiness by enabling individual warfighters to prepare more effectively for specialized roles at the beginning of their careers. This will lead to higher quantities of candidates who are better prepared for military specialties. Additionally, MBA technology will allow selection boards to achieve greater precision by eliminating inherent subjective biases from the candidate identification process, and thus recognizing persons who otherwise might not have been identified with current techniques.
The goal of the MBA program is to raise the baseline of individual performance among those striving to participate in specialized Department of Defense (DoD) roles, and empower the warfighter by providing knowledge of their own biology to achieve personal, defined career goals. MBA will measure across the hierarchical layers of an individual's underlying biological systems that convert the genetic code (genotype) into observable cognitive, behavioral, and physical performance traits (phenotype). These layers of biology, or expression circuits, must be interpreted using new computational approaches that maintain accuracy with highly multivariate measures while simultaneously being tolerant of a wide variety of data types. MBA will develop an individualized performance system to empower the warfighter throughout their career by identifying key nodes in the expression circuits that lead to successful outcomes in assessment and selection for a given military specialty. The program will develop technology to monitor the dynamics of those expression circuits in real time, and validate the targeted circuits by testing their ability to accurately predict individual outcomes. The MBA program will not prescribe career paths for individuals against their will or exclude candidates from entering a selection process.
Success in this program will require teams who have experience in data analytics, molecular biology, and biological sensor technologies. Specifically, proposing teams should be multidisciplinary with expertise in next-generation sequencing, gene and protein expression, epigenetics, metabolomics, circulating biomarker discovery, bioinformatics, implantable and wearable devices, in vivo sensors, and diagnostic/medical device development. Proposing teams are strongly encouraged to include expertise across these fields, as well as with industry partners familiar with IDE or equivalent regulatory approvals.
