U.S. pandemic researchers and responders were caught flat-footed by COVID-19, but the intelligence community’s lead research division wants to catch up and be ready for the next viral outbreak.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA, issued a broad agency announcement offering seedling funding for early-stage technology and methods that could revolutionize pandemic response. Specifically, the agency wants “quick turnaround projects for COVID-19 research topics.”
“Successful technology solutions will require creative, multidisciplinary methods, paradigm changing thinking, and transformative approaches,” the solicitation states. “Preference will be given to research with the ability to not only provide rapid capability against the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also enhanced warning and response capacity for future similar events.”
The current pandemic has highlighted capability gaps in five areas, according to the solicitation:
Detection and Sensing: Including developing rapid diagnostics for symptomatic and asymptomatic people, with a focus on contactless approaches, such as breath sampling. Officials are also interested in hearing about potential RNA and DNA monitoring—“e.g., in wastewater or other environmental samples”—to detect new outbreaks and model scale and spread of the disease.
Supply Chain Management and Integrity: Building tools for mapping global supply chains for critical reagents and other important supplies; geographic areas at high-risk of supply shortages; and effects on local, regional and global medical supply chains during crises.
Geo-Spatio-Temporal Monitoring and Mapping, with Privacy Protection: Developing methods for “rapid and robust tracking,” including of individuals without mobile phones. Projects should include a focus on preserving individual privacy.
Collaboration Tools and Information Discovery and Reliability: Project managers are looking for new ways to identify and analyze data while ensuring “validity, intent ..
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