WRAIR hosts review of DARPA’s Alert WARfighter Enablement program

Photo By Tyra Breaux | In June 2025, the Walter Reed Army Institute of research hosted the six-month review of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Alert WARfighter Enablement program, commonly referred to as the “AWARE” program. The DARPA AWARE program review was an opportunity for all the performers, stakeholders, and teams working on the project to come together, discuss progress, and plan the way forward. The AWARE program seeks to develop a combination drug and device to non-invasively increase alertness following sleep loss in humans, without negative side effects such as anxiety, irritability, or euphoria, and with reduced addictive potential.  

UNITED STATES

09.19.2025

Story by Zeke Gonzalez 

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

In June 2025, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research hosted the six-month review of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Alert WARfighter Enablement program, commonly referred to as the “AWARE” program.

Managed in the DARPA Biological Technologies Office, the AWARE program aims to develop a new product that can help service members who haven’t received enough sleep to safely and effectively improve their alertness and cognitive function on extended operations. The six-month review was an opportunity for all the performers, stakeholders, and teams working on the project to come together, discuss progress, and plan the way forward.

“During sustained operations, service members don’t always get enough sleep,” said Dr. Tracy Jill Doty, Chief of WRAIR’s Sleep Research Center (SRC). “This means that during critical periods of those operations, service members may experience deficits in vigilance, mood, alertness, and cognitive performance.”

Current measures to address this problem include the use of stimulants such as caffeine. For some service members undergoing long-duration training or missions, stronger stimulants such as dextroamphetamine may be prescribed to help them maintain cognitive performance under sleep loss.

“Within the military, dextroamphetamine is only used in specific circumstances,” explained Dr. Doty. “It is a prescription that can help with alertness, but it can have negative effects on mood, risk the potential for addiction, and cause long-term effects on sleep.”

To mitigate these potential adverse effects, the AWARE program aims to use photo-pharmaceuticals, medicines which are only active in certain wavelengths of light, to safely and non-invasively increase alertness and performance during critical periods of sustained operations.

“It may sound pie-in-the-sky to activate drugs with light, but this process has been done with other chemicals effectively,” said Dr. Doty. “Being able to turn these drugs on or off will allow service members to optimize their performance when they are sleep restricted by the mission. And it has other benefits too: it may mitigate or entirely remove the side effects that the currently used stimulants have.”

WRAIR has been involved with the AWARE program from early in its inception. Once the photo-pharmaceutical is developed, the SRC aims to contribute by conducting clinical sleep research to test the effects of the product and evaluate its efficacy and safety for the warfighter.

“We have been involved with AWARE program reviews from the start,” said Dr. Doty. “WRAIR understands the military end-user. We can help provide guidance and expertise on how the product can best support the U.S. service member.”

For more information about WRAIR’s SRC and to participate in sleep research studies, visit the website: https://wrair.health.mil/Join-a-Study/Sleep-Research-Center/

• Date Taken: 09.19.2025
• Date Posted: 09.19.2025 15:35
• Story ID: 548785
• Location: US