By Calvin Biesecker
After a slight delay in finalizing contracts with the two companies developing a new generation of biological detectors, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expects to take initial deliveries of the assay technology within the next few weeks and begin testing shortly thereafter, an official with the DHS Office of Health Affairs (OHA) told sister publication TR2.
DHS had hoped to begin the Gen-3 BioWatch testing back in February, if not January, but it took about two months longer than expected to complete the contract negotiations, Bob Hooks, deputy assistant secretary for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense at the DHS Office of Health Affairs (OHA), told TR2. During the negotiations it became apparent that OHA needed to provide further clarification and refinements of “what we are looking for” as to expectations in the capabilities of the equipment the contractors are developing he said.
For example, it was important to ensure that the contractors understood the importance of an assay system that would be used in the upcoming testing that is not only high quality but high throughput, Hooks said.
“We’re going to be testing a thousand strains or whatever and to be able to do that in a high throughput manner so we’re not doing it for the next five years,” he said. “So we needed to walk through some of those logistics.”
The assays are the core detection technology of each company’s system and the testing will occur at Los Alamos National Laboratory using live samples of biological agents that DHS wants to monitor. The ultimate goal is to have a high level of sensitivity for potential threats with low false alarm rates.
Two teams led by Northrop Grumman [NOC] and United Technologies [UTX] were selected by OHS last November to move forward into the Gen-3 development phase. The contracts were finalized on Feb. 2. Northrop Grumman’s initial award is for $15.1 million and UTC’s $14.8 million and each contract has potential value of around $37 million.
Despite the delay in getting to contract and initiating testing, the current Gen-3 schedule remains basically intact and a field test of the respective systems is still slated for later this fall in Chicago, Hooks said. If all goes well, that should clear the way to begin purchasing nearly 500 of the Gen-3 systems in FY ’11 for an operational test and evaluation phase that will occur in four cities in FY ’12 that will also involve networking the machines.
The communications component of the Gen-3 systems is just one of the things that will be tested this year, Hooks said. In all the development testing will look at about 12 key components and subsystems, some of which will be done in series and others in parallel, he said.
“What’s important is balancing,” Hooks said of the approach to testing. “We’re not taking undue risk of trying to get ahead of ourselves so we’re not wasting money unnecessarily but we’re also not being slow as molasses because we have an urgent need to get through the testing to validate the equipment so we can deploy it and save lives.”
While the Gen-3 program suffered from lengthy delays early on, the program has been more stable the past 18 months although it continues to deal with relatively brief delays.
It’s about managing expectations, Hooks said. “We’re out at the cutting edge and when you’re out at the cutting edge you have to be smart in your testing but you also have to manage expectations that I do not manufacture the equipment, I test the equipment. And I’m confident industry knows what we need and I hope for the best and I plan for the worst.”
The threat of a biological attack by a terrorist group against the United States is considered the most likely near-term threat from weapons of mass destruction facing the country, according to the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. The Commission, it its first report in late 2008, predicted that an attack will occur by 2013.
The Gen-3 systems will look like large stainless steel refrigerators, roughly seven feet tall and four feet wide, weighing about 800 pounds. Multiple systems will be deployed in cities and urban areas to monitor the air for specific biological threats, continuously sampling the air and then at certain times of the day automatically analyzing the samples and reporting the results.
The current BioWatch program includes sample collectors at multiple areas in each of over 30 cities and regions but requires manual retrieval of the samples for analysis at local laboratories. OHA recently said ultimately BioWatch will be extended to 50 cities and regions around the country, covering about one-third of the nation’s population.
Hooks said that the Test and Evaluation Master Plan was developed and approved by his team and the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. Independent testing will be done by a Defense Department agency and Los Alamos will also offer independent testing of the assays. In addition, Hooks said that public health officials from the various BioWatch jurisdictions have been to some of the preliminary meetings and they will have the chance to watch some of the testing and review results.
“We’ve got to have our state and local partners comfortable with this technology before we deploy it,” he said. “This is involving your end user through the process and that’s what we’re all about.”