DEVCOM SC.pdf

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

U.S. ARMY COMBAT CAPABILITIES

DEVELOPMENT COMMAND

SOLDIER CENTER

Kathleen Swana, Ph.D.

Physical Scientist, Office of the Chief Technology Officer

DEVCOM Soldier Center

14 DEC 2020

Syn Bio Knowledge Gaps

PAO #U21-183

• DEVCOM Soldier Center Overview

• SynBio Mission Relevance

• DEVCOM SC Materials Capabilities

• Knowledge Gaps & Opportunities for Collaboration

AGENDA

Central Florida Research Park

Orlando, FL

The DEVCOM Soldier Center is the Soldier’s research center - Ensuring dominance through superior scientific and engineering expertise.

VISION

To provide the Army with innovative science and technology solutions to optimize the performance of our Soldiers.

MISSION

Natick Soldier Systems Center Natick, MA

DEVCOM SOLDIER CENTER

DEVCOM SOLDIER CENTER:

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Reduction of Combat Load and Class 1 Logistics

• Nutritional Interventions for Warfighter Performance

• CBRN Protection of Food and Water

• Mechanical & Chemical Engineering for Field Feeding Systems

• Monitoring & Predicting Performance

• Optimizing/Enhancing Performance

• Human Augmentation

• Human Systems

Integration

• Equipment

Integration

• Soldier-borne

Sensors

• Mission Information

• Power Integration

• Anthropology

• Parachutist Safety and Military Freefall

• Parachute Design and Aircraft Integration

• Airdrop Sensor Integration

• Precision Airdrop

• Airdrop Modeling, Simulation and Data Analytics

• Aerial Delivery Materials Research

• Composite Materials

• Command & Control

Technologies

• Multifunctional

Materials

• Camouflage, Concealment & Signature Management

• Ballistic Protection

• Textile Technology and Materials Evaluation

• Collective/ Percutaneous Protective Materials

• Individual Equipment Design

• Ballistic Protection

• Sensory Protection

• Individual Hydration

• Multispectral

Camouflage and Concealment

• Textile Technology

• Multifunctional

Materials

• Environmental

Protection

• Chemical Biological

Protection

• Mixed and Augmented Reality

• Synthetic and Natural Environments

• Live Training

• Medical Technology

• Artificial

Intelligence

• Adaptive Training

• Distributed

Simulation

• Training

Effectiveness

• Cyber Training

Simulations

AAIRDUCT OV-1

Autonomous Aerial Resupply into Dense, Urban, Complex Terrain

CCAR

Close Combat Assault Ration

CCSM

Camouflage, Concealment & Signature

Management

MASTR-E

Measuring and

Advancing Soldier Tactical Readiness and

Effectiveness

OWT

One World Terrain

CAPE & IMHS

Combat Protective

Ensemble & Integrated Multi-threat Headborne

System

Army Training Tech

Material Science –

Fiber/Textile

Soldier Performance/

Integration

Military Nutrition/ Food Service Log

Aerial Delivery

Individual/ Collective Protection

DEVCOM SOLDIER CENTER:

SYNBIO MISSION RELEVANCE

Ultra-Light Advanced Protective Materials: Biofabrication of fibers and films with precise control over molecular synthesis, microstructure, and morphology could enable production of high-performance materials for ballistic and environmental protection.

Self-Healing Materials:

Embedding organisms that sense and respond to damage in coatings, fibers, and films would enable materials to self-repair.

Signature Management:

Proteins, nanomaterials, and material precursors with unique microstructures can be produced to form fabrics and coatings that manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum to reduce detectability.

Point-of-Need Manufacturing:

Microorganisms may be engineered to produce critical materials or material precursors in austere environments to minimize logistics bottlenecks.

Enhanced Physical Performance: Engineered microbial communities, enhanced nutrition, and probiotics could improve immune response, pathogen resistance, and inherent vector protection.

Sense and Respond: Genetically modified cells may be designed to sense and respond to changes in physiological and cognitive status, environmental conditions, mission demands, and threats.

Enhanced Cognitive Performance: The human microbiome can be designed to optimize cognitive, physical, and physiological response to environmental stressors and improve temperature tolerance, sensory awareness, and resilience to sleep deprivation and dehydration.

Water Purification and Remediation: Biological processes can be engineered for remediation of waste streams and to replace current logistics-heavy water filtration methods for use in multi-domain battle spaces.

Synthetic Biology

• Establish tools for predictable biological engineering

• Engineer organism for synthesis of desired material precursor

DEVCOM SC MATERIALS CAPABILITIES

Molecular Development

Fabrication

Validation

Polymer synthesis

• Film Casting

• Coating Formulation

• Fiber/Filament Spinning and Processing: mono/bi/tri-component fiber extrusion, fiber coating

• Textile Swatch Fabrication

• Additive Manufacturing

Characterization and functional evaluation of materials

DEVCOM SC’s established expertise and capabilities support integration of SynBio products into materials, from molecular development to fabrication and validation of the final material.

End Applications:

• Advanced protective materials

• Power and energy

• Signature management

• Optical materials

• Sensors

• Water purification

Testing/ Down-Selection

• Emerging bio-optical materials for signature management and camouflage

– Protective material surfaces and coatings with tunable optical

(visible/IR) properties enabled by bio-particles and bio-pigments, such as:

• Xanthommatin (Xa), a broad-spectrum pigment extracted from cephalopod chromatophores that exhibits unique optical properties (POC: Dr. Richard Osgood)

• Reflectin, proteins derived from squid skin cells that control changes in color and intensity of reflected light (POC: Dr. Joshua Uzarski)

– Knowledge gaps:

• Experimental and computational tools enabling scalable synthesis of bio-based particles and pigments with tunable optical properties

• High-throughput characterization of structure and optical properties of SynBio-produced materials

KNOWLEDGE GAPS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR

COLLABORATION

Polymer fibers containing Xa

• SynBio-enabled combat feeding and hydration (POCs: Dr. Michael Wiederoder and Mr. Eric Brack)

– Food and water safety: biosensors and chemical sensors for detection of pathogens and toxic contaminants

– Water purification and remediation: e.g. water filtration using membranes derived from

SynBio-produced molecules

– SynBio materials to enhance nutrition/formulations of rations: biomanufacturing of food ingredients and nutrients (e.g. alternate protein sources, food additives to improve performance, novel preservatives to extend shelf life)

KNOWLEDGE GAPS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR

COLLABORATION

− Knowledge gaps:

• Experimental and computational tools enabling scalable synthesis of functional materials for sensing pathogens/contaminants, filtration, or food biomanufacturing

• High-throughput analytical methods for characterization, screening, and selection of targeted material properties

• Other areas of interest (Primary POC: Dr. Kathleen Swana)

– Sensing systems for targeted molecules of interest: sense and respond to changes in physiological and cognitive status, environmental conditions, mission demands, and threats (POC: Mr. Jason Soares)

– Advanced protective materials: Biofabrication of fibers and films with controlled molecular synthesis, microstructure, and morphology to enable high-performance materials for thermal management, self-repair, and e-textile functionality

– Development of additive manufacturing platforms suitable for use with SynBio-produced materials (e.g. point-of-need manufacturing, food biomanufacturing)

• Knowledge gaps:

− Development of approaches to generate materials with properties of interest − Understanding the relationship between biological features and material properties − Development of high-throughput materials structure and properties characterization and screening methods − Tools for predictive design and engineering of consortia or other SynBio-based systems for sense and respond functionality

KNOWLEDGE GAPS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR

COLLABORATION

Primary POC:

Kathleen Swana

Office of the Chief Technology Officer, DEVCOM SC kathleen.w.swana.civ@mail.mil

CONTACT INFORMATION