HR001122S0034-Amendment-01.pdf

The purpose of Amendment 1 to HR001122S0034, the Biological Technologies Broad Agency Announcement, is to extend the proposal abstract deadline, full proposal deadline, and BAA closing date, and clarify the use of Special Notices (SNs) in conjunction with the announcement.

Changes bolded/highlighted/underlined below.

Part I Overview Information is updated as follows:

o Proposal Abstract Due Date and Time: Abstracts may be submitted on a rolling basis until 4:00 PM ET, June 22, 2023 o Full Proposal Due Date and Time: Proposals may be submitted on a rolling basis until 4:00 PM ET, June 22, 2023 o BAA Closing Date: June 22, 2023

Section 1 Funding Opportunity Description is updated as follows:

This publication constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) as contemplated in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.102(d)(2) and 35.016 and 2 C.F.R. § 200.203. Any resultant award negotiations will follow all pertinent laws and regulations, and any negotiations and/or awards for procurement contracts will use procedures under FAR 15.4, Contract Pricing, as specified in the BAA.

The mission of BTO is to foster, demonstrate, and transition breakthrough research, discoveries, and applications that integrate biology, engineering, computer science, mathematics, and the physical sciences. BTO’s research investment portfolio includes combating pandemic disease, innovative physiological interventions, human performance and warfighter readiness, and deep exploration of changing ecologies and environments for improving U.S. capabilities and resilience. BTO’s programs operate across a wide range of scales, from individual cells to the warfighter to global ecosystems. BTO responds to the urgent and long-term needs of the Department of Defense (DoD) and addresses national security priorities.

BTO is interested in submissions related to the following topic areas:

General Topic:

Biological technology topic areas that fit the national security scope of BTO’s mission.

Human Performance:

Understanding and improving treatment of and resilience in neurological health, transformative neural processing, fatigue, cognition, and optimized human performance, including in extreme conditions.

Discovering interventions that utilize biotechnology, biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, and related disciplines to advance and optimize human performance, including in extreme conditions.

Developing and leveraging technologies to advance continuous or near-continuous monitoring of an organism’s physiology to elucidate mechanisms of human readiness and resilience.

Understanding and improving interfaces between the biological and physical world to enable seamless hybrid systems and revolutionary new human-machine interfaces.

Developing approaches to enhance physiological resilience and performance in extreme conditions (e.g., cold weather climates) or to reduce musculoskeletal injuries via interventions that do not require genomic modifications.

Materials, Sensors, and Processing:

Designing novel materials, sensors, or processes that mimic or are inspired by biological systems.

Developing technologies to leverage biological systems and enhance the acquisition and maintenance of critical and strategic organic and inorganic materials.

Developing technologies for sustainable, controlled integration and monitoring of biological systems into atypical substrates in the built and natural environments.

Developing tools to understand the underlying rules defining biomolecular and biomaterial structure/function properties in order to predict desired outcomes for novel materials.

Leveraging and translating a biological system’s underlying design rules, functional processes, and/or means of interaction to provide insight into or the ability to govern biological systems from biofilms to organs to ecosystems.

Developing new computational and experimental tools and capabilities for forward engineering of biological systems, such as cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and complex communities, to both develop new products and functional systems, as well as to gain new insights into underlying mechanisms.

Developing new platform technologies that integrate, automate, and miniaturize the collection, processing, and analysis of biological and chemical samples.

Developing hybrid electronic/electromagnetic systems that integrate biological organisms, components, biologically-encoded circuitry, biogenic materials, or exploit biological phenomena to surpass capabilities of abiotic equivalents.

Ecosystem and Environmental:

Testing and validating new theories and computational models that identify factors and principles underlying collective and interactive behaviors of biological organisms at all scales, from individual cells to global ecosystems.

Developing technologies that leverage synthetic biology, living cellular systems, ecological diversity, or properties of biology to support operations in extreme environments.

Understanding the dynamics of population and ecosystem behavior to preserve equilibrium, provide strategic opportunity, mitigate impacts, or avoid catastrophe.

Developing and leveraging new technologies that can be applied to ecosystems for agricultural production stabilization and post-disaster ecosystem restoration.

Understanding emerging threats to global food and water supplies and developing countermeasures that could be implemented on regional or global scales.

Developing and leveraging new insights into non-human biology across and between populations, e.g., microbes, insects, plants, marine life, and how they interact with their environment.

Leveraging biology to provide new tactical and strategic operational advantages, concealment and camouflage approaches, and bio-inorganic capabilities.

Developing approaches using biology, biogeochemistry or materials science to mitigate or sequester anthropogenic carbon dioxide in terrestrial, marine, and post-disaster environments.

Biosecurity, Biodefense, and Biosafety:

Developing new technologies and approaches that ensure biosafety and biosecurity of biological hardware and data.

Developing innovative technologies that characterize novel, engineered, and/or natural emerging pathogens.

Developing new technologies to treat, prevent, forecast, and detect the emergence and spread of infectious diseases that have the potential to cause significant health, economic, and social burden.

Biomedical and Biodefense:

Understanding causal relationships that underlie acute and chronic disease states to support warfighter health.

Developing new technologies for the rapid, automated, and resilient manufacturing, delivery, and distribution of critical molecules for applications in therapeutics, chemical and biological defense.

Developing new technologies to support next-generation cellular therapeutic applications.

Developing new platform technologies for targeted, effective, spatiotemporally-controlled delivery of large and small molecules and biologics.

Leveraging biotechnology to produce solutions to combat antimicrobial resistance.

Developing novel diagnostic, prophylactic, and therapeutic approaches for warfighter injury that can be provided even in austere settings.

In conjunction with this announcement, BTO intends to publish Special Notices (SNs) in support of targeted studies associated with the above listed topic areas. Proposal Abstracts and Full Proposals submitted in response to these SNs will be evaluated and selected in accordance with Section 5 of this solicitation.