The Ultimate Challenge: Saving Warfighter Lives

FORT BELVOIR, VA, UNITED STATES

09.28.2018

Courtesy Story

Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Chemical and Biological Technologies Department

This isn’t competing in the Ironman or climbing Mount Everest — this challenge was designed to save warfighter lives. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Chemical and Biological Technologies Department created the 24 Month Challenge with the goal of taking diagnostic technology from concept to the field. It puts easy-to-use tools in the hands of warfighters to detect and diagnose biological threats.

The 24 Month Challenge examined more than 30 technologies before fielding the four most promising detection and testing technologies. Those chosen were a multiplex lateral flow immunoassay (LFI) test for the detection of malaria, dengue fever, melioidosis and the plague; a multiplex LFI test for the detection of dengue and melioidosis; a LFI reader that assists in the interpretation of the assays and communicates the results to a data cloud; and the Severe Acute Systematic Febrile Illnesses pouch, a multiplexed polymerase chain reaction assay for use on the FilmArray platform, a multiplex system for rapid testing of pathogens.

To meet the requirements, these tools needed to be rugged and simple to use by non-medically trained personnel in austere environments, or in minimally equipped clinical laboratories. In addition, they had to have the ability to transmit results to a centralized cloud database where the data can be remotely aggregated and analyzed, such as the Biosurveillance EcoSystem.

Key partners in the program were the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the Naval Health Research Center. NRL identified commercial partners to develop the custom technologies and validate them through a tiered evaluation process. Researchers independently evaluated the analytical performance and environmental suitability. Validated technologies were then tested outside the United States.

The prototypes were evaluated at various front-line clinics in Sierra Leone, Thailand, Peru and Australia. Standard-of-care or gold-standard testing was run concurrently with the fielded technologies, resulting in more than 100,000 recorded results.

The results are published in a Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research journal article “Rapid Design and Fielding of Four Diagnostic Technologies in Sierra Leone, Thailand, Peru, and Australia: Successes and Challenges Faced Introducing these Biosensors.”

The program also fostered strategic relationships with clinics and laboratories in the test countries. These sites are used for current research conducted under the successor for the 24 Month Challenge, the Multi-Echelon Diagnostics program where diagnostic prototypes are tested in austere environments.

Technology development as a result of the 24 Month Challenge will help DTRA shape future diagnostic development and deliver innovative and timely tools for our warfighters in the field.
DTRA CB POC: Kathleen Quinn; [e-mail] NRL POC: Shawn Mulvaney, Ph.D.; [e-mail]

• Date Taken: 09.28.2018
• Date Posted: 09.28.2018 13:21
• Story ID: 294816
• Location: FORT BELVOIR, VA, US