The three companies developing next-generation biological detection systems for potential deployment in urban areas are all making progress toward an operational test and evaluation (OT&E) phase that will begin next spring, the program manager for the Bioagent Autonomous Networked Detector (BAND) program tells TR2.
One of the main challenges that remain is improving the robustness of the designs so they can remain in the field “without any performance degradation,” Ed Rhyne says. BAND is currently managed within the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate.
It’s not the mechanics of the designs rather making sure the reagents are efficient depending on environmental conditions, Rhyne says.
“So you’ve got enzymes, etcetera, for DNA identifications that do not like high temperatures,” Rhyne says. “There are other things that have come into play as far as some of the environmental issues we’ve experienced.”
The three companies developing solutions under BAND are IQuum, Microfluidic Systems, Inc. (MFSI) and U.S. Genomics. IQuum and MFSI have solutions based on well known polymerase chain reaction process and TaqMan chemistry and are working to lower costs by using a different probe to get around the intellectual property rights associated with TaqMan, Rhyne says.
U.S. Genomics, which is developing a more novel, and therefore higher risk, approach based on a universal reagent set has “made remarkable progress,” Rhyne says. Basically the company had a “paper study” four years ago and now has “put together a system that actually has run from sample to identification and it doesn’t need a priori knowledge of what they’re looking for,” he says. “Contrast that with Taq or any other PCR-type of technology where you have to have an idea of what you are looking for before you can actually put together the reagents with the chemistry.”
Another benefit with U.S. Genomics’ technology is that it can identify unknown agents in the air and provide an alert, Rhyne says. It may be that the event has something to do with what may be going on locally, such as Gypsy Moth spraying, which is why having local knowledge is important, or it might be something of concern, he says.
BAND is aimed at detecting a wider array of pathogens than the current BioWatch systems deployed in major urban areas. The program, which is expected to replace the current BioWatch sensors, will also be networked digitally and provide near-real time automatic alerts. The current BioWatch sensors require daily sample retrieval for lab analysis.
The networking component to BAND has also been a challenge as there is currently no existing network that BioWatch is based on. BAND has been running on commercial telecommunications networks when they are available but keeping an Internet address for these can be difficult, Rhyne says.
The systems being developed by all three companies have gone through extensive lab evaluations at the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. Original plans called for pilot testing to begin this month but the current phase was extended another year to make way for new requirements from the Office of Health Affairs, which was created within DHS last year and has responsibility for operating and managing the BioWatch sensors (TR2, March 19). OHA will manage the OT&E phase when it starts next April.
The new requirements haven’t been finalized and remain in flux. For example, Rhyne says a requirement to integrate GPS sensors into BAND has been dropped. Basically the new requirements are operationally focused, mostly dealing with how data is reported, he says.
Despite the year-long extension, known as Phase 3X, Rhyne hasn’t been given any additional funding to manage BAND. That means he will have to modify some of forthcoming lab testing that will be done once the companies make the requisite changes to their systems based on OHA’s new requirements.
“Some of the testing that I planned to do is on whole organisms,” Rhyne says. “I’m not going to be able to do as much of that as I’d like so I’m going to have to go back down to nucleic acid tests.”
While testing on whole organisms would be ideal, Rhyne says the test plan going forward will still be “scientifically sound” and will be based on what has been done in the past for BioWatch and Centers for Disease Control programs.