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3 Futuristic Biotech Programs the U.S. Government Is Funding Right Now

3 Futuristic Biotech Programs the U.S. Government Is Funding Right Now

Biomedical engineer Kevin Zhao has a sensor in his arm and his chest that monitors his oxygen level in those tissues in real time.

(Photo Credit: Kira Peikoff)



Last month, at a conference celebrating DARPA, the research arm of the Defense Department, FBI Special Agent Edward You declared, "The 21st century will be the revolution of the life sciences."

Biomedical engineer Kevin Zhao has a sensor in his arm and chest that monitors his oxygen level in real time.

Indeed, four years ago, the agency dedicated a new office solely to advancing biotechnology. Its primary goal is to combat bioterrorism, protect U.S. forces, and promote warfighter readiness. But its research could also carry over to improve health care for the general public.

With an annual budget of about $3 billion, DARPA's employees oversee about 250 research and development programs, working with contractors from corporations, universities, and government labs to bring new technologies to life.

Check out these three current programs:

1) IMPLANTABLE SENSORS TO MEASURE OXYGEN, LACTATE, AND GLUCOSE LEVELS IN REAL TIME

Biomedical engineer Kevin Zhao has a sensor in his arm and his chest that monitors his oxygen level in those tissues in real time. With funding from DARPA for the program "In Vivo Nanoplatforms," he developed soft, flexible hydrogels that are injected just beneath the skin to perform the monitoring and that sync to a smartphone app to give the user immediate health insights.

A first-in-man trial for the glucose sensor is now underway in Europe for monitoring diabetics, according to Zhao. Volunteers eat sugary food to spike their glucose levels and prompt the monitor to register the changes.

"If this pans out, with approval from FDA, then consumers could get the sensors implanted in their core to measure their levels of glucose, oxygen, and lactate," Zhao said.

Lactate, especially, interests DARPA because it's a first responder molecule to the onset of trauma, sepsis, and potentially infection.

"The sensor could potentially detect rise of these [body chemistry numbers] and alert the user to prevent onset of dangerous illness."

2) NEAR INSTANTANEOUS VACCINE PROTECTION DURING A PANDEMIC

Traditional vaccines can take months or years to develop, then weeks to become effective once you get it. But when an unknown virus emerges, there's no time to waste.

This program, called P3, envisions a much more ambitious approach to stop a pandemic in its tracks.

"We want to confer near instantaneous protection by doing it a different way – enlist the body as a bioreactor to produce therapeutics," said Col. Matthew Hepburn, the program manager.

So how would it work?

To fight a pandemic, we will need 20,000 doses of a vaccine in 60 days.

If you have antibodies against a certain infection, you'll be protected against that infection. This idea is to discover the genetic code for the antibody to a specific pathogen, manufacture those pieces of DNA and RNA, and then inject the code into a person's arm so the muscle cells will begin producing the required antibodies.

"The amazing thing is that it actually works, at least in animal models," said Hepburn. "The mouse muscles made enough protective antibodies so that the mice were protected."

The next step is to test the approach in humans, which the program will do over the next two years.

But the hard part is actually not discovering the genetic code for highly potent antibodies, according to Hepburn. In fact, researchers already have been able to do so in two to four weeks' time.

"The hard part is once I have an antibody, a large pharma company will say in 2 years, I can make 100-200 doses. Give us 4 years to get to 20,000 doses. That's not good enough," Hepburn said.

To fight a pandemic, we will need 20,000 doses of a vaccine in 60 days.

"We have to fundamentally change the idea that it takes a billion dollars and ten years to make a drug," he concluded. "We're going to do something radically different."

3) RAPID DIAGNOSING OF PATHOGEN EXPOSURE THROUGH EPIGENETICS

Imagine that you come down with a mysterious illness. It could be caused by a virus, bacteria, or in the most extreme catastrophe, a biological agent from a weapon of mass destruction.

What if a portable device existed that could identify--within 30 minutes—which pathogen you have been exposed to and when? It would be pretty remarkable for soldiers in the field, but also for civilians seeking medical treatment.

This is the lofty ambition of a DARPA program called Epigenetic Characterization and Observation, or ECHO.

Its success depends on a biological phenomenon known as the epigenome. While your DNA is relatively immutable, your environment can modify how your DNA is expressed, leaving marks of exposure that register within seconds to minutes; these marks can persist for decades. It's thanks to the epigenome that identical twins – who share identical DNA – can differ in health, temperament, and appearance.

These three mice are genetically identical. Epigenetic differences, however, result in vastly different observed characteristics.

(© 1994 Nature Publishing Group Duhl, D. et al. Neomorphic agouti mutations in obese yellow mice. Nature Genetics 8, 60.)

Reading your epigenetic marks could theoretically reveal a time-stamped history of your body's environmental exposures.

Researchers in the ECHO program plan to create a database of signatures for exposure events, so that their envisioned device will be able to quickly scan someone's epigenome and refer to the database to sort out a diagnosis.

"One difficult part is to put a timestamp on this result, in addition to the sign of which exposure it was -- to tell us when this exposure happened," says Thomas Thomou, a contract scientist who is providing technical assistance to the ECHO program manager.

Other questions that remain up in the air for now: Do all humans have the same epigenetic response to the same exposure events? Is it possible to distinguish viral from bacterial exposures? Does dose and duration of exposure affect the signature of epigenome modification?

The program will kick off in January 2019 and is planned to last four years, as long as certain milestones of development are reached along the way. The desired prototype would be a simple device that any untrained person could operate by taking a swab or a fingerprick.

"In an outbreak," says Dr. Thomou, "it will help everyone on the ground immediately to have a rapidly deployable machine that will give you very quick answers to issues that could have far-reaching ramifications for public health safety."

Kira Peikoff

Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.

Meet Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, the first Director of President Biden's new health agency, ARPA-H

Today's podcast guest, Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, directs ARPA-H, a new agency formed last year to spearhead innovations in the realm of health. Time will tell if ARPA-H can produce achievements similar to DARPA, the agency on which it's based.

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In today’s podcast episode, I talk with Renee Wegrzyn, appointed by President Biden as the first director of a federal agency created last year called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. It’s inspired by DARPA, the agency that develops innovations for the Defense department and has been credited with hatching world changing technologies such as ARPANET, which became the internet.

Time will tell if ARPA-H will lead to similar achievements in the realm of health. That’s what President Biden and Congress expect in return for funding ARPA-H at 2.5 billion dollars over three years.

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Matt Fuchs

Matt Fuchs is the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org and Making Sense of Science. He is also a contributing reporter to the Washington Post and has written for the New York Times, Time Magazine, WIRED and the Washington Post Magazine, among other outlets. Follow him @fuchswriter.

Tiny, tough “water bears” may help bring new vaccines and medicines to sub-Saharan Africa

Tardigrades can completely dehydrate and later rehydrate themselves, a survival trick that scientists are harnessing to preserve medicines in hot temperatures.

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Microscopic tardigrades, widely considered to be some of the toughest animals on earth, can survive for decades without oxygen or water and are thought to have lived through a crash-landing on the moon. Also known as water bears, they survive by fully dehydrating and later rehydrating themselves – a feat only a few animals can accomplish. Now scientists are harnessing tardigrades’ talents to make medicines that can be dried and stored at ambient temperatures and later rehydrated for use—instead of being kept refrigerated or frozen.

Many biologics—pharmaceutical products made by using living cells or synthesized from biological sources—require refrigeration, which isn’t always available in many remote locales or places with unreliable electricity. These products include mRNA and other vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and immuno-therapies for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions. Cooling is also needed for medicines for blood clotting disorders like hemophilia and for trauma patients.

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Gail Dutton
Gail Dutton has covered the biopharmaceutical industry as a journalist for the past three decades. She focuses on the intersection of business and science, and has written extensively for GEN – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Life Science Leader, The Scientist and BioSpace. Her articles also have appeared in Popular Science, Forbes, Entrepreneur and other publications.