The Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense shortly plan to sign an agreement aimed at finding ways to expand cooperation between the BioWatch biological detection program and a DoD program focused on chemical and biological threats to military installations.
The agreement is basically between the DHS Office of Health Affairs (OHA), which manages BioWatch, and the Guardian infrastructure protection program managed within the DoD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, Dr. Michael Walter, OHA’s Detection Branch Chief and BioWatch Program Manager, says at the annual Biodetection Technologies symposium sponsored by the Knowledge Foundation.
The two organizations have done a limited amount of work together in the past such as joint exercises and the joint deployment of a sampling system but the planned memorandum of understanding represents a more formalized approach to cooperation, Walter says.
One area of emerging cooperation is that DoD is going to begin using the local BioWatch laboratories to analyze samples it is collecting on its installations that are nearby the labs, Walter says. Another is that OHA and the local BioWatch labs may shift to using DoD’s detection assays when checking environmental samples because “they use different targets, different sequences and it gives us a little more confidence in what we’re detecting,” he says. The Center for Disease Control is currently manufacturing the screening assays for BioWatch.
Other areas of potential cooperation include exploring whether BioWatch should be deployed on military installations in cities where BioWatch sample collectors are currently deployed, Walter says. This could extend to the Gen-3 BioWatch systems, which have just entered the subsystem test phase and are meant to replace the current systems that require manual retrieval of samples for local laboratory analysis with automated systems that do sample collection and detection in the box that is deployed. DoD is also interested in joint development and testing of the Gen-3 technology, he says.
Walter says that OHA is working with DoD on developing an information technology architecture that would support BioWatch in the civilian settings as well as the systems deployed on military bases. There’s also interest in having the medical professionals that are on defense installations working with their counterparts in the civilian world where BioWatch is deployed, Walter says.
There is also interest from the state and local communities for having DoD more involved with BioWatch, Walter says.
Walter says there are a many areas where biological sampling and detection need to improve. These include improving the testing used to confirm an initial test result and increasing confidence in sample collection, he says.
“One of the first acts that we could consider doing in the event of a virus is what we call phase one sampling, which is basically going around to the detector that is showing positives and collecting samples,” Walter says. “We’re not good at that. People think we are but we’re not. And if there’s an area that needs technology development its sample collection because we need to have a better handle on it.”
Medical Surveillance
The BioWatch system is just the “front end” of an overall surveillance system, Walter says. More work needs to be done to figure out if a virus has entered the population, he says.”
“And can I use an advanced system or an advanced detection technology like BioWatch to better inform me on my medical surveillance,” Walter says. “Syndromic analysis or syndromic surveillance or active medical surveillance is something we’re also taking a very close look at and technologies need to be developed for that.”
There is also a need to explore how to better integrate veterinarian surveillance with overall medical surveillance, Walter says.
Last fall OHA selected Northrop Grumman [NOC] and United Technologies [UTX] to move into the Gen-3 development phase (TR2, Nov. 25, 2009). Contracts weren’t finalized until earlier this year. OHA has just begin testing the assays–which are the core detection technology–of the competing systems and plans to field test the respective systems later this fall (TR2, April 28). If successful, plans are to purchase systems for an operational test and evaluation in four cities in FY ’12.
At some point, the program will open again for a full and open competition, Walter says. However, new systems that enter the fray must have independent data to support how their systems work, he says.
If Gen-3 is deployed, it will affect the current concept of operations with BioWatch, Walter says. Given that these will be automated systems producing automated results, various questions have to be answered such as “Do I trust it? Am I going to pull the trigger and call the stockpile because the machine said so? If I’m going to confirm it, how am I going to confirm it?” he says.
Nonetheless, in the end, the expectation is to have a better and more efficient response, Walter says.
OHA is already in discussions with the DHS Science and Technology branch about what comes after Gen-3. Gen-4 is “very undefined” at the moment, Walter says.
The Gen-3 systems are fairly well understood so what happens next, Walter says. The talks with S&T have to do with formalizing requirements from an operational standpoint for a new system, which may not be a new technology, he says. It could be a new identifier or a new process related to automated detection systems or a combination of technology and process, all of which has yet to be decided, he adds.