Warfighting Performance

Currently the DoD relies on critical materials and commodity molecules, such as petroleum-, rubber- and wood-derived products, which are needed to protect and provide mobility to our warfighters in an austere, expeditionary setting. Unfortunately, providing these materials to our warfighters suffers from vulnerabilities such as fragile supply chains, foreign sourcing, or costly shipping to points of need. These critical materials also contribute to DoD waste streams with no further value, while also creating logistical challenges. To address this, the Turning Upcycled Waste into Novel, Sustainable Materials program is investigating the feasibility of converting abundant DoD waste stream products (e.g., tires, scrap wood, and paper) into durable and sustainable materials. Approaches will be investigated to develop materials suitable for use in applications ranging from contingency construction materials to commodity molecules. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The eX Virentia (eXVi) program will investigate the use of existing unmodified vegetation as a sensor to identify activities of DoD interest by utilizing natural plant responses to man-made chemical exposures. The eXVi program will bring together the research communities of plant biology, remote sensing, and computational modeling to uncover the internal biochemical response of plant species to chemical exposure, and how they relate to external observable characteristics. The program will grow plant species across genera and family, measure internal and external responses, and model the responses with the goal of scaling predicted responses to similar species across phylogenies. If successful, discovery of predictable and distinct, cause-and-effect relationships between exposure and plant response will significantly improve situational awareness of hazards and materials activity thereby limiting harmful exposure to the warfighter. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The Biological Undersea Energy program aims to develop emerging technologies that ensure the DoD has the capability to maintain a presence in austere oceanic conditions to provide advanced knowledge of resources and conditions and achieve desired mission effects. Approaches will be developed that utilize biological processes and products to provide energy for improved endurance and performance capabilities while reducing the reliance on servicing or resupply. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

Warfighters are currently deployed to emerging disease hotspots with increasing pathogen spillovers. Biosurveillance groups tasked with force health protection rely on cold chains and transport media to maintain sample viability for characterization in a laboratory setting, but these methods are unreliable, sometimes inaccessible, or limited in their utility. The Field Forward Biothreat Storage Solutions for Force Protection program will offer expanded capabilities to microbial threat characterization by developing systems capable of long-term, cold chain-free storage of microbial samples. Systems that are able to reliably store and retrieve viable microbes over long timescales will ensure that collected samples reach the lab for study in a usable state, allowing the DoD to better leverage its field-forward laboratories to perform pathogenicity assessments for countermeasure development. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The Strengthening Resilient Emotions and Nimble Cognition Through Engineering Neuroplasticity (STRENGTHEN) program, building upon efforts started under the Human Social Systems program in PE 0601101E, Project CCS-02, aims to overcome the limitations of focusing on descriptions of individual disease effects and suicide risk factors by adopting a transdiagnostic approach that addresses the mechanisms (i.e., predictors or causes) of mental health and wellbeing. STRENGTHEN will optimize the brain networks essential for Cognitive Flexibility and Emotional Regulation, establishing dose response, time-to-onset, and duration-of-effect curves to quantify the impact of change in Cognitive Flexibility and Emotional Regulation on validated measures of suicidality, behavioral health, and wellbeing within DoD. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

Military infrastructure and systems are expected to function years beyond their original intended lifetime but are subject to degradation by external factors. For instance, the formation of biofilms is ubiquitous, corroding and biofouling many military systems, such as aircraft, fuel tanks, ships, medical devices, and filtration systems for water and air, ultimately costing the DoD billions of dollars annually to repair and maintain. The Materiel Protection through Biologics thrust will develop approaches to sustain military infrastructure and systems by developing biological or bio-inspired technologies to imbue beneficial functions into existing systems, resulting in benefits such as, but not limited to, reducing drag and mitigating corrosion. These bio-inspired interventions will protect and sustain equipment and infrastructure, reducing operation costs and increasing service lifetime. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The Biotechnology for Challenging Environments program is developing novel biological solutions to enable warfighter operations in remote and extreme conditions. As the DoD expands operations into previously inaccessible domains, new and unique logistical constraints imposed by extreme conditions and resource scarcity threaten warfighter and warfighting platform readiness. This program will develop technologies using biological approaches to protect and maintain performance of warfighters and warfighting platforms, such as electronics and infrastructure, from challenging conditions. Technology advances developed in this effort will extend mission duration and enhance operational capabilities in emerging domains. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The Environmental Microbes as a Bioengineering Resource (EMBER) program aims to develop novel, bio-based technologies to overcome key challenges facing domestic supply of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) critical to the U.S. and Department of Defense (DoD). This program will leverage the diversity, specificity, and customizability of environmental microbiology to enable new domestic biomining methods for the separation, purification, and conversion of REEs into manufacturing-ready forms. Advances in this area will deliver capabilities to assure access to DoD-critical materials domestically and in operational settings. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602715E, Project MBT-02.

The Biologically Based Materials and Devices Studies and Concepts thrust aims to enhance the DoD's capability to conduct operations in varied conditions. The DoD operates in all domains, which creates a myriad of difficult burdens to the warfighter and sustained operations. This thrust will develop solutions to protect, support, and sustain warfighters and operational capabilities in austere conditions, whether terrestrial, aquatic, in the far atmosphere, or beyond. Technologies developed in this thrust will leverage biological or bio-inspired components to provide enhanced materials and devices that support the warfighter and mission execution.

Survival from combat trauma is predicated on a rapid sequence of events that escalate care as soon as possible. The GOLDen hour extended EVACuation (GOLDEVAC) program is developing new technologies that will provide medical care closer to the point of injury and facilitate effective evacuation. This will extend the time available to evacuate injured service members to higher levels of care. Technologies that enable autonomous care of patients and/or which act as force multipliers that enable caregivers to effectively take care of larger number of patients will also be explored. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The DoD requires rapid development of medical countermeasures (MCM) to ensure force health protection and improve our ability to respond to emerging and novel biological threats. Despite recent advancements in development of new MCMs, challenges with delivery limits their current therapeutic potential. While emerging targeted delivery systems such as polymer/lipid nanoparticles and viral vectors have enabled the delivery of large, complex MCM molecules, they are still plagued by lack of widespread availability and effectiveness. Investing in efficient, adaptable delivery technology is crucial for strengthening biosecurity preparedness and will enable rapid response to the evolving biological threat landscape, whether the threat is natural or manmade. The Novel Delivery Technology for Medical Countermeasures program will develop minimally invasive MCM delivery systems, in which any therapeutic can be quickly formulated and administered to treat or prevent any disease. Developing novel delivery platforms will maintain warfighter health and readiness and enable rapid response to existing and novel biothreats. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Rapid Battlefield Triage program is advancing capabilities to quickly triage warfighters requiring urgent life-saving medical intervention and enable medical resources to provide an appropriate response in current and future battlefields. Today, triage at point-of-injury is limited by subjective assessments, tools that are manually intensive, and physiological signatures with little diagnostic and prognostic value. This program will build on recent biomarker discoveries and innovations in sensing platforms to develop field-portable technologies that support triage in the most challenging operational domains. By optimizing allocation of scarce medical resources and scaling to multiple casualties, these devices will help far-forward units maximize their fighting strength against adversaries that inflict large numbers of casualties and constrain evacuation to advanced medical facilities. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The BioElectronics to Sense and Treat (BEST) program seeks to improve warfighter recovery from battlefield injuries by developing technologies to diagnose, prevent, and treat wound infections in real-time. This program will generate high-resolution sensors that continually monitor a wound by assessing the community composition of contaminating microorganisms and/or the host immune response. Data from these sensors will be used to predict if a wound will become infected and to regulate the targeted administration of known and novel treatments to prevent infections or resolve existing infections. Ultimately, the sensor and treatment elements will be combined into a closed-loop smart bandage that can provide rapid diagnostics and precise treatments at all levels of deployed military medical care. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Neurological Assessment and Protection from Brain Injury program is transforming our current detection and protection strategies against traumatic brain injury (TBI), such as injury from blast exposure. This program is developing prophylactic countermeasures to prevent severe brain injury. Current available tools in far forward operating domains for these injuries are lacking especially those that effectively discriminate between mild- and medium-level trauma. These novel technologies will change the paradigm for treatment of TBI by preventing injury rather than attempting to reverse or repair it. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Next-Generation Combat Casualty Care program is developing advances in critical efforts to preserve warfighter life and well-being in the battlefields of the future. This research will directly address a leading cause of potentially preventable battlefield casualties by investigating new approaches for developing whole blood substitutes for traumatic injury that can be deployed on the battlefield in far forward settings. Additional potential uses apply to disaster relief, mass casualty events, and stabilization missions. Advances within this program will ensure that the U.S. remains able to care for service members in peer and near-peer conflict by addressing gaps in combat casualty care. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Alert WARfighter Enablement (AWARE) program is developing a combination drug and device to non-invasively increase alertness following sleep loss in humans, without negative side effects, and with reduced addictive potential. AWARE program goals include developing candidate photoswitchable molecules that can be reversibly activated in the presence of near infrared (NIR) light, and wearable device elements that emit NIR light to activate the candidate molecules. The combination of an ingested photoswitchable molecule and a NIR-emitting device will selectively activate neural pathways responsible for executive function, working memory, and decision making, wherever and whenever both drug and light are simultaneously present. If successful, AWARE technology will enable warfighters to maintain cognitive function and alertness during long-range missions and to obtain restorative sleep when needed, without negative side effects. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

Warfighters operate in extreme, austere, and dangerous domains that stress physiology, contain pathogens, and compromise health and performance. Protective equipment often hinders performance (e.g., loss of dexterity, rapid overheating, visual obstruction, etc.) and pharmacological approaches can carry unpleasant-to-dangerous side effects. The Red Blood Cell Factory (RBC-Factory) program will explore the limits of what biologically active components, or cargoes, can be placed inside red blood cells (RBCs) to help protect the warfighter from within. Cargoes can include natural or synthetic products and may not perturb the physiological characteristics that allow RBCs to safely operate in a body. RBC-Factory aims to deliver a method capable of high-throughput modification of RBCs and a knowledge product identifying what kinds of cargo and how many can be put inside an RBC. RBC-Factory will determine if RBCs are a suitable vector for medium-term passive protection for warfighters against threats and, if so, de-risk future programs that operationalize the technology for specific applications. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Improved Personnel Placement (IPP) program aims to improve force lethality and overmatch by developing assays to determine physical/cognitive states in order to maximize performance and resilience, while minimizing attrition. IPP will identify and measure biomarkers for unique physical, cognitive, and behavioral traits associated with a broad spectrum of military specialties. This knowledge will help individualize training and provide novel measures of physical/cognitive states for specialized roles, while providing training cadres greater precision for predicting candidate readiness without bias. Measuring an individual's biological system will ensure that they achieve their maximum potential while facilitating readiness and resilience for the DoD. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Reengineering Enabling Sleep Transition in Operationally Restrictive Environments (RESTORE) program aims to enhance the efficiency of sleep to optimize warfighter performance following sleep restriction, as commonly occurs in combat operations. Sleep is a critical factor in cognitive function and decision-making, yet the tempo of military operations often results in acute and chronic sleep restriction. To optimize sleep recovery in such conditions, RESTORE seeks to develop a multi-modal system that enables precision control of sleep macro- (i.e., orchestration of transition between sleep phases) and micro-architectures (i.e., efficiency within sleep phases). By optimizing efficiency of recovery despite sleep restriction, RESTORE seeks to enable warfighter to perform at their best, even in the most challenging operational environments, and to enhance their overall readiness and effectiveness. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Controlled Genome Protection program will develop advanced capabilities to control and tune the activity of gene editing technologies. Advances in synthetic biology have significantly expanded the suite of genome editors and modulators available. Many of the new genome editors have been identified from rare, slow-growing microorganisms with unique metabolic capabilities. New tools across these new classes of genome editors are required to advance our understanding of, our control of, and ultimately our leverage of gene editing technologies across all domains of life. Advances within this program will ensure that the U.S. leads innovation in this widespread, advancing field that poses potential national security threats due to the large-scale democratization of gene editing technologies. Prior to FY 2026, this program was funded in PE 0602115E, Project BT-01.

The Biomedical Technology Studies and Concepts thrust will ensure force effectiveness by advancing technologies that prepare, sustain, and restore the operational health and wellness of the warfighter. This thrust will seek to develop new classes of medical care technologies that will support the warfighter during all stages of the operational cycle. Advanced platforms in this thrust will protect overall force health against the multitude of operationally relevant biothreats and physiological stressors. The thrust will result in the development of fundamental models and technologies for rapid detection, characterization, and protection against emerging classes of biothreats. This thrust will also result in the development of biomedical technologies that explore new capabilities of biology to enhance warfighter preparation and recovery.