DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

13/08/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 14/08/2024 01:11

DARPA Events Highlight Opportunities at the Intersection of Bio and AI/ML

The Biological Technologies Office (BTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting two promotional events for bio-innovators, blue sky thinkers, and AI/ML experts to:

  • Get to know BTO program managers
  • Discover the vision for the office
  • Introduce a special funding opportunity connected with an invitation-only event (based on submitted concepts)
  • Share information on new funding opportunities
  • Connect with the DARPA community

Entitled AI BTO, the events will provide insights on DARPA's approach - and seek new ideas - at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Participation is available in-person/hybrid in both East Coast and West Coast venues in September 2024:

  • AI BTO West - September 13 at the Westin St. Francis, San Francisco, CA
  • AI BTO East - September 20 at the Samberg Conference Center, Cambridge, MA

BTO leadership is interested in engaging first-time or non-traditional proposers and seeks revolutionary approaches to emerging Department of Defense (DoD) challenges. During these events, BTO will introduce five new overarching topics that align with AI/ML applications:

1. Prediction and Health:

Develop transformational tools that improve health outcomes through early exposure risk models; predictive disease assessments; personalized counterfactual prediction and explanation based on fine-grained individual data; and rapid, safe interventions that avoid human or animal subject research. Devise novel experimental approaches to validate that AI Bio tools perform as intended. Formulate models to envision potential risks and benefits of future AI Bio democratization.

2. Autonomous Science

Enable multiple areas of autonomy that increase data generation and curation by orders of magnitude compared with standard techniques, including disruptive autonomy, new cloud lab instances, and improved human-machine teaming.

3. Biomanufacturing/Synthetic Biology

Discover new techniques and algorithms to design bespoke proteins and other biomolecules based on desired material properties, function, or enzymatic activity. Improve protein and biomolecule design using closed loop inferences that link sequence, structure, and function. Design tools to scale and accelerate bioproduction that prioritize both biofidelity and economy.

4. Challenges with Scale

Devise mechanisms to handle challenging or sparse data sets for predictive models, including ecosystem-scale data across disparate databases, or extreme environment data with limited availability in space and time; and develop digital twins across size and complexity scales from microbes to mammals.

5. Exciting Frontiers

Create biomolecules with 'new to nature functionality' such as novel mechanisms of catalysis or fluorescence. Predict and design new multicellular communities to generate and maintain desired collaborative functions. Develop capabilities that allow for modeling and prediction in entirely new areas of AI Bio, from biological data validation and constraints to explainability and trustability. Develop operational analyses to assess the tactical or strategic impact of biotech capabilities in DoD scenarios. Promote development of unique biomimicry capabilities through advanced models of biological systems.

BTO leadership will introduce an exciting special event to be held in the November/December timeframe where program managers will compete for your innovative ideas to address AI/ML challenges in the bio space. Details forthcoming.