Protein Palace Proposers Day

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is hosting an in-person Proposers Day for the Protein Palace program on November 17, 2026, with registration closing November 9, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. ET. DARPA anticipates releasing the Protein Palace solicitation prior to the event; once released, it will be posted on sam.gov. The Proposers Day, held at the Executive Conference Center in Arlington, Virginia, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, is limited to 100 registered in-person attendees and aims to introduce the program vision, facilitate researcher collaboration and teaming, and enable one-on-one breakout sessions with the Program Manager. Protein Palace seeks to enable rapid purification of virtually any protein with high specificity, purity, and yield through dynamic chemical and physical approaches that transcend traditional lock-and-key binding methods. The program consists of a 24-month Phase 1 focused on specificity and generalizability, requiring demonstration of a purification platform capable of separating eight different proteins at small scale, and an 18-month Phase 2 focused on scalability and throughput, requiring a scaled-up platform capable of purifying two additional difficult-to-separate proteins. All in-person attendees must complete DARPA Form 104; non-U.S. citizens must submit either DARPA Form 60 or a Foreign Visit Request by the registration deadline. The Proposers Day will include government overview presentations, poster sessions limited to one per organization (24 by 36 inches maximum), and 15-minute breakout intervals from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET. Attendance is voluntary and not required to submit proposals. DARPA will not provide reimbursement for response costs. Technical contact: Dr. Huanan Zhang, DARPA-SN-27-01@darpa.mil.