Materials and Biological Technology

The Atmospheric Water Extraction (AWE) program aimed to enable water harvesting directly from the atmosphere by leveraging new materials and advanced engineering and manufacturing techniques to alleviate logistical and tactical burdens. Currently, the DoD relies on purification of existing water sources and/or distribution of bottled or treated water to provide the warfighter with sufficient daily hydration. State-of-the-art water-from-air generation systems are not suitable for military applications because the systems do not operate in a range of atmospheric conditions needed by our soldiers, from arid conditions (<40% relative humidity) to extremely humid, and are too energy-intensive (<7 gallons of water output per gallon of fuel). This program sought to deliver systems with extraordinarily low size, weight, and power (SWaP) characteristics to provide potable water to individual warfighters and expeditionary units and provide insights into how new materials can help the warfighter overcome existing material challenges. Technologies developed under this program sought to provide strategic and tactical advantages aligned with the DoD's vision of future combat operations carried out by distributed and self-sustaining forces.

The Food and Feedstocks on Demand program developed biological technologies to support the DoD need to strengthen local resource security for the warfighter. Currently, operators in the field are burdened with transport and disposal of single-use materials. This program used these impure mixed waste materials as inputs to re-form the molecules for nutrition or other strategic applications. Research in this program provided a versatile system that delivers food and petroleum/oils/lubricants (POLs) so that warfighters can independently produce material support from waste materials to extend mission duration and/or expand operational flexibility in resource-limited conditions.

The Persistent Terrestrial Living Sensors program developed engineered biological sensor platforms capable of detecting land-based threats (e.g., chemicals, radiation, and biologics) and relaying unique signals to existing DoD assets. Unlike conventional methods that monitor threats and are limited by sensor energy needs, these biological sensors are effectively energy independent, increasing the potential for wide distribution and robustness. Resulting platforms enable a variety of remote, persistent monitoring and reporting capabilities to address threat scenarios relevant for national security, including passively detecting chemicals, pathogens, and radiation in various conditions. These sensors provide a flexible suite to complement conventional sensor systems within the DoD.

The Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors program developed novel capabilities to achieve strategic objectives in operational domains by leveraging chemical solutions and living organisms present in natural settings. This effort focused on characterizing marine biological behavior in response to targets of interest. Successful components of the program's developed toolbox were transitioned to relevant stakeholders and end users. The toolbox will assist operations in contested waters and provide the DoD with a suite of materials and methods for achieving strategic objectives. Results from this research will enhance future DoD naval operations.

The Restoring Cognitive Capability program developed novel drugs to provide rapid therapy for neuropsychiatric disorders experienced by warfighters and veterans. Active-duty military personnel face increased risk of acute and chronic neuropsychiatric dysfunction, limiting day-to-day function and return to duty. Current therapeutic approaches for many neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD], mood disorders, and substance abuse) rely on individual management with integrated psychiatric therapy and medication. However, most interventions approved for use in these conditions lack long-term efficacy, involve a logistical burden of treatment and/or carry a risk of serious adverse side effects. This program designed novel drugs to functionally interact with neuronal receptor subtypes known to play a role in these neuropsychiatric conditions, with the aim of enabling fast-acting and effective alleviation of neuropsychiatric dysfunction with single or minimal doses.

The Gene Editor Enabled Diagnostics & Biosurveillance program aimed to develop fieldable, low-cost, programmable and reconfigurable diagnostic capabilities for rapid, specific, sensitive, and multiplexed detection and characterization of biological threats in military and public health scenarios. This program investigated the design rules for high confidence diagnostic biosurveillance as well as developed agnostic pathogen detection and characterization platform technology for overall threat assessment. These design rules informed advanced computational and machine learning approaches to scan genome data, algorithmically design probes and guides for optimal assay results, and characterize previously unknown organisms or threats. Additional work initiated the development of portable, cold chain-free platforms that can preserve microbe samples to enable field-forward diagnostics and threat assessments either at the point-of-need or in other areas of interest.

The Preemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements (PREPARE) program is creating a transient, near immediate prophylaxis and treatment to protect military personnel and civilians against public health and national security threats. Currently, protection against Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats relies on physical barrier technology. This program includes research to develop novel transient and reversible gene modulator therapies to bolster intrinsic host defenses. Work within this program will provide novel solutions that extend beyond the DoD's capabilities to respond to re-emerging, newly emerging, or engineered threats.

The Bioremediation of Battlefields program is addressing the DoD need to stabilize and remediate sites impacted by prior military activities, including contaminated combat zones, defense installations, and test ranges. This will ensure the safety of service members and local communities and minimize the impact of warfare by developing biological tools that remediate soil contamination. This program will eliminate contaminants, and thus restore habitability, by identifying and optimizing organisms, such as microbes, fungi, and plants, that can detect toxic compounds, mitigate their impact, and report on the state of remediation. Bioremediation of Battlefields will reduce the long-term impacts of military activities and improve the overall health and land use potential for contaminated sites.

The Unburdening the Warfighter from Chemical/Biological (CB) Defense program aims to increase warfighter survivability by developing improved personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical countermeasure (MCM) technologies to protect against CB threats. Current methods of CB protection require significant logistical burdens, including suits that are bulky and hot, which limit operational effectiveness. These burdens increase if additional levels of protection are required. The Unburdening the Warfighter from CB Defense program is investigating and designing novel biological and material approaches that provide rapid protection against multiple CB agents for the warfighter. This research will innovate PPE through the discovery of compounds and lightweight, durable systems designed to capture, neutralize, or repel CB agents. This novel approach will provide almost immediate and lasting protection even in austere operational settings.

The DoD requires the ability to monitor complex operating domains with sufficient resolution and confidence to inform missions and protect personnel and platforms against various physical and chemical threats. The Signal Processing and Communication with Biotechnology program is developing a new customizable sensing methodology using a novel microbe-based, platform technology capable of detecting a variety of input signals, processing information, and generating multiple output signal types in diverse operational conditions. Technology developed in this program will offer insight into signal processing and transmission methodologies with logistical advantages and reliable operability in contested domains.

The Bio-Inspired Coastal Defense program is developing self-sustaining, hybrid man-made and biological reef structures to fortify and defend DoD bases in low-lying coastal regions. Military assets in these coastal regions are vulnerable to storm-driven wave action that causes erosion, degrades infrastructure, and impedes operations. Innovative coastal defense will require major technological advances in (1) design, construction, and placement of manufactured reef primers, (2) accelerated recruitment and/or growth of reef species, and (3) sustained, zero-cost natural maintenance and improvement (e.g., increased durability after anchor and materials testing) of the defensive reef. The primary benefit of such structures is to attenuate wave height during storm events for both established and under construction coastal facilities.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. In another example, critical defense assets such as missile silos and naval piers rely on aging concrete infrastructure, 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, mitigating corrosion, or repairing concrete. These bio-inspired interventions will protect and sustain equipment and infrastructure, reducing operation costs and increasing service lifetime. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

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. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602024E, Project WP-01.

Efforts in the Awareness thrust examine and develop opportunities to increase our understanding of adversarial systems and through improved processing techniques, models, and signals of opportunity that will generate low-cost, actionable solutions for enhanced detection and characterization of events and systems of interest. Focus areas include improved sensing and assessment. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded as Disruptive Sensing Studies and Analysis in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

The Burn n' Go program will increase the production rate and availability of solid rocket motors (SRMs) via development of novel materials and methods for tailorable, post-manufacturing thrust control. Complementary to efforts to improve supply chain resilience being developed under the Open Price Exploration for National security (OPEN) program funded in PE 0602303E, Project IT-04, Burn n' Go will enable a paradigm shift in solid rocket motor production by creating a multi-mission standardized motor design for use across multiple existing and future weapons systems. Utilizing a standard design for SRMs in set diameter classes, Burn n' Go will enable suppliers to limit line switching times, improve tooling, accelerate quality control, reduce machining costs, and enable a more stable procurement stream, which can be flexed across Services and weapons. Burn n' Go will validate the developed technology through a series of component-level feasibility tests and integrated system-level static fire tests. Technology developed under this program will be transitioned to the Services and commercial Defense partners. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

The Reconfigurable Systems thrust is developing new approaches to enable more rapid and robust adaptation of defense systems and systems-of-systems to changing mission requirements and unpredictable environments. This includes development of capabilities across sensing, perception, planning and control for autonomous, high-speed operation in cluttered environments without Global Positioning System (GPS) information. This also includes development of capabilities to manipulate and control adversary sensory perception and/or situational awareness. Additional work in this thrust focuses on how sensing systems and military systems-of-systems are designed for real-time resilient response to dynamic, unexpected signals and contingencies. Research is developing a more unified view of system behavior that allows better understanding and exploitation of complex interactions among components, including development of formal mathematical approaches to complex adaptive system composition and design. These capabilities will impact autonomous systems and systems-of-systems, including those that involve humans, in a variety of DoD-relevant contexts. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

The Making and Maintaining thrust is developing technologies that enable the production of molecules, materials, and parts in an expeditionary setting that will untether military forces from supply chains and enable a continuous global presence. Focus areas include making products at the point of need from local feedstock, developing the ability to use non-optimized materials in manufacturing; accelerating part qualification; and new approaches to developing room temperature superconductors and efficient thermoelectric materials. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded as Enabling Production Studies and Concepts in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

Research in the Chemical Processing for Force Protection thrust is focused on the development of new chemical approaches and technologies across a broad spectrum of DoD needs. One area involves development of innovative approaches for scalable small molecule synthesis coupled with predictive tools for route design, possibly offering a new strategy to discover how to make new molecules such as pharmaceuticals and explosives. A second area includes qualification of new molecules made using agile manufacturing platforms. A third focus leverages advances in automation to develop safe, reproducible experimental approaches for systematic development of energetic materials. Another focus is to develop the tools and processing methods to safely turn locally available materials in a given location into reliable, point/time-of-need energetics, for battlefield requirements. In addition, investments in this thrust will advance chemical characterization, information management and analysis, and automation. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

The Functional Materials and Devices thrust is developing advanced materials, components and systems to improve device performance for DoD structural, sensing, imaging and communication applications. One focus of this thrust involves development of advanced transductional materials that convert one form of energy to another for DoD-relevant applications. While promising transduction materials are known for a variety of applications, integration into devices has not been realized. Another focus area is the development of physics-based models that predict material behavior when illuminated by high peak power electromagnetic interference. A third focus area involves development of new multi-functional materials and device designs that will radically decrease the size, weight and power requirements of high-energy photon sources. Such devices should enable fieldable detection units for sensing, non-destructive evaluation of parts, and detection of DoD-relevant targets. A fourth focus area is developing new liquid-based, large-aperture imaging systems such as telescopes. Such telescopes would break the unfavorable, exponential scaling between aperture size and cost for normal telescopes and enable low-cost imaging platforms for ground- and space-based applications. Another focus area under this thrust involves novel nano-architected materials to enhance device-relevant properties for applications to quantum-enhanced sensors. Finally, novel design optimization approaches will be explored where material composition and microstructure are included as explicit, continuous variables alongside shape optimization. This co-optimization of shape and material together will enable new combinations of structural performance and sustainability for a variety of DoD applications. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.

The Materials for Extreme Environments thrust is exploring new materials, innovative architectures, and development processes that will significantly enhance the performance and persistence of DoD platforms operating in extremely harsh environments. Materials with superior strength, functionality, and resiliency are critical for enabling DoD platforms, weapons and other components to operate and persist under conditions including, but not limited to, extremely high or low temperatures, turbulence, ionizing radiation, and/or corrosive environments. Recent developments in materials such as high entropy alloys, superconducting materials, and infiltrated carbon fiber composites hold promise for achieving material solutions for improved survivability in a wide range of harsh environmental conditions. Similarly, advancements in material design, processing and manufacturing are enabling novel material architectures that can further enhance performance and resilience in structures such as leading edges, windows and apertures, propulsion systems, and space structures. Exemplar areas of research within the Materials for Extreme Environments thrust include the following: 1) high temperature materials for hypersonic platforms, 2) high temperature window and aperture materials, 3) radiation and/or electromagnetic pulse (EMP) hardened electronics for space platforms, 4) coatings for platform survivability in corrosive environments, 5) active and passive cooling methods for apertures and forward-facing vehicle features, and 6) superconducting and magnetic materials for novel propulsion systems. Beginning in FY 2026, this program will be funded in PE 0602025E, Project MSL-01.