DARPA Shows Off Technology at Demo Day

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Dozens of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program managers, researchers and engineers descended upon the Pentagon May 11 to show off new technology.

DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said the goal of the agency’s demo day is to get the agency's breakthrough technology in front of the right people.

“Today is the day that we bring some of those crazy technologies out here into the Pentagon so that we can get them in front of our customers and our partners, people across all the military services and across DoD,” she told reporters.

With 60 program managers at the event, Prabhakar said they would be engaging with Defense Department officials to set up links and work on accelerating the transition of the programs into formal acquisitions.

One important area of research is in biological technologies, Prabhakar said. DARPA’s newest office — the biological technologies office — was stood up two years ago and does work in infectious diseases, synthetic biology and neurotechnologies. 

“DARPA has been working in biological technologies for now close to two decades but we felt it was an important time to put a special focus there,” she said. “This is one of the areas of research where the pot is bubbling and when you see the pace of research and the pace of the underlying technologies that affect biology that tells us that surprise is going to come from this year and we want to make sure that we understand that and help drive it.”

The recent Zika and Ebola crises are pointed reminders of the challenges that infectious diseases pose to national security, she said.

“We also worry about the possibility of engineered biological threats,” Prabhakar said. “All of those argue for a future where we have a much faster way to nip disease in the bud.”

One piece of technology under the biological technologies office is the dialysis-like therapeutics program. Using a lightweight, affordable and portable system, DARPA wants to filter the blood of a sick patient and remove pathogens, toxins and harmful bacteria, said the system’s program manager Army Col. Matthew Hepburn. 

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