DARPA Invites Proposals for AI Biotechnology Pitch Days Dec. 5-6

Shruti Devasthali

DARPA funds the research and development of technologies with the potential for transformational impact, central to delivering on the agency’s mission to create and prevent strategic surprise for national security. The agency’s Biological Technologies Office focuses on the natural world to derive revolutionary capabilities centered on:

  • Foundational technologies that promote simulation and prediction of biological systems and outcomes, like simulation, foundational models, and data generation,
  • Warfighter readiness, health, and recovery, such as medical countermeasures, diagnostics, health IT and medical devices, and
  • Operational support of U.S. forces to enable their execution of missions across the spectrum, ranging from fibers for garments to distributed, point-of-need manufacturing.

To capitalize on these new opportunities and further accelerate the pace of scientific and technological discovery and development, DARPA looks to include targeted and limited-scope investments via an AI BTO solicitation seeking proposals on technologies focused at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

“AI BTO seeks to fund proposals that catalyze the formation of future research projects by clarifying the opportunity space and de-risking technical barriers to achieving high impact,” said BTO Director Dr. Michael Koeris. “To this end, the office is providing $4.5 million to support up to 45 revolutionary catalyst projects and will be finalizing research agreements day of. We look forward to reviewing the novel biotechnology approaches to further our national security mission.”

BTO leadership is interested in engaging first-time or non-traditional proposers and seeks revolutionary approaches to emerging or anticipated Department of Defense challenges. During these events, BTO will introduce five new overarching topics that align with AI/ML applications:

  • Prediction and Health
  • Autonomous Science
  • Biomanufacturing/Synthetic Biology
  • Challenges with Scale
  • Exciting Frontiers

For more info: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-09-13