BIPSR_mTBI_RFI FINAL 9 Oct 2026.docx

Title: Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) Blast Injury Prevention Standards Request for Information

This Request for Information (RFI) is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the Defense Health Agency Research and Development - U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The USAMRDC mission is to provide medical knowledge and materiel lifecycle management to protect, treat, and optimize service member health and performance across the full spectrum of operations. The Department of War (DoW) Blast Injury Research Coordinating Office (BIRCO) on behalf of the Executive Agent Responsible Official (EARO) coordinates the DoW-sponsored biomedical research programs aimed at preventing, mitigating, and treating blast-related injuries; recommends blast injury prevention standards; identifies knowledge gaps and shapes research programs accordingly; promotes information sharing among the operational, intelligence, medical, and materiel development communities; and facilitates collaborative research among DoW laboratories and the laboratories of other federal agencies, academics, and industry to leverage resources and to take full advantage of the body of knowledge that resides both within and outside of the DoW to accelerate the delivery of blast injury prevention and treatment strategies to Service members. BIRCO advises the EARO on Military Health System (MHS) Blast Injury Prevention and Treatment Standards for recommendation to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Health Affairs [OASW(HA)].

To identify the best available standards that will meet the needs of the DoW, the BIRCO, in collaboration with The MITRE Corporation, employs the MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards Recommendation (BIPSR) Process. The BIPSR Process is designed to address the needs of all Services for biomedically valid MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards to protect against the entire spectrum of blast injuries. The process provides an unbiased, stakeholder-driven critical assessment methodology for identifying the best biomedically valid candidate, MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards currently available. The term “Military Health System Blast Injury Prevention Standard” is defined as a “biomedically valid description of physiologically or biomechanically based injury and performance responses of a human to blast insults.” The standards can range from simple dose response curves and injury thresholds that address single components of blast insults, such as blast pressure wave magnitude, or address multiple components of blast insults, such as pressure magnitude over time. These standards will play a critical role in the prevention of service member injuries and the enhancement of service member survivability by informing health hazard assessments, survivability assessments, and protection system development aimed at producing safe weapon systems, survivable combat platforms, and effective protection systems.

To conduct these assessments, the DoW needs MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards to investigate the physiological and biomechanical effects of blast injuries on the Warfighter, such as when generated by enemy explosive weapons and when produced by blast exposures during weapon systems firing.

For the purposes of this RFI, Blast Injury is defined as an injury that occurs as the result of the detonation of high explosives, including vehicle-borne and person-borne explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices. The taxonomy of injuries from blast explosive devices is comprised of: (a) Primary: Blast overpressure injury resulting in direct tissue damage from the shock wave coupling into the body; (b) Secondary: Injury produced by primary fragments originating from the exploding device (preformed and natural (unformed) casing fragments, and other projectiles deliberately introduced into the device to enhance the fragment threat); and secondary fragments, which are projectiles from the environment (debris, vehicular metal, etc.); (c) Tertiary: Displacement of the body or part of the body by the blast overpressure causing acceleration/deceleration to the body or its parts, which may subsequently strike hard objects and suffer typical blunt injury (translational injury), avulsion (separation) of limbs, stripping of soft tissues, skin speckling with explosive product residue, and building structural collapse that results in crush and blunt injuries or crush syndrome development; (d) Quaternary: Other ”explosive products“ effects - heat (radiant and convective) and toxic (toxidromes from fuel, metals, etc.) - causing burn and inhalation injury; (e) Quinary: Clinical consequences of ”post-detonation environmental contaminants“ including bacteria (deliberate and commensal, with or without sepsis), radiation (dirty bombs), tissue reactions to fuel, metals, etc.

BIPSR Process Stakeholders identified 14 BIPSR Process Blast Injury Types: Lower Extremity, Spine/Back, Upper Extremity, Dermal Burns, Skull Fracture, Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Pelvic/Urogenital, Neck, Face, Abdomen, Thorax, Ocular, Auditory, and Mild TBI (mTBI).

The BIPSR Process is currently focused on mTBI Blast Injury Prevention Standards. Blast-related mTBI injury includes blunt impact and blast pressure threats. Potential operational environments and intended uses of mTBI Blast Injury Prevention Standards may include risk assessment of military service members who are exposed to blunt impacts resulting from acceleration of the body, blunt injury from a ballistic strike to the helmet, or effects from blast pressure produced by a weapon system or explosion.

This RFI seeks to:

(1) Obtain information on existing mTBI blast injury criteria, thresholds, standards, models, etc., that could be considered as potential DoW injury prevention standards, as well as those being developed or researched that could inform the BIPSR Process.

(2) Identify gaps between existing knowledge and that knowledge needed to inform standards.

(3) Give performers/producers of existing protection systems that are highly relevant to understanding human tolerance limits and predicting blast injuries an opportunity to describe how they can assist in standards identification, development, and research.

(4) Identify researchers who have developed, or are developing or researching, blast injury criteria, thresholds, and testing methods, and who possess appropriate scientific expertise, experience, and resources to describe and provide the scientific evidence needed to inform the standards.

(5) Identify and obtain methodologies, tools, models and simulations, dose-response curves, injury thresholds, computational models, their components and parameters, and associated technologies that may contribute to an upgradable platform for continuous integration of improved technologies.

(6) Obtain information from a broad community, including industry, academia, and other federal agencies on the availability of military-relevant blast injury standards.

To submit publications, articles, reports, images, and other relevant materials related to existing or emerging human mTBI blast injury criteria, thresholds, and models for consideration as potential DoW Military Health System Blast Injury Prevention Standards, please visit the DoW Blast Injury Research Coordinating Office website at https://blastinjuryresearch.health.mil/index.cfm/contact_us.

On the Contact Us form, provide the requested basic contact information. Complete Contact Information and select “Request for Information (RFI),” in the drop-down menu. After submitting your form, you will then be provided with a username, password, and link to the RFI submission site. Once you submit your document(s), you will receive a confirmation email.

DISCLAIMERS AND IMPORTANT NOTES

This invitation is issued solely for information and program planning purposes; it does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Participation is voluntary and is not required to respond to a subsequent Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) (if any) or other research solicitation (if any) on this topic.

The DHA Contracting Activity (DHACA)/USAMRDC DoW BIRCO will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred in participation.

Questions should be addressed to the Contract Specialist for this Special Notice, Ms. Skylar Wells at skylar.a.wells2.civ@health.mil.