RESEARCH RESOURCE
BY REALIZING THE UTILITY OF CURRENTLY MARKETED TECHNOLOGIES, EVEN IF THEY DON’T FULLY ADDRESS A CAPABILITY GAP, A PROGRAM CAN SHAPE FUTURE EFFORTS.
When Coleman deployed to Iraq in 2008 with the 520th Teater Area Medi- cal Laboratory, he discovered the need for a Leishmania AV-RDD to support recommendations to leaders and medi- cal planners on theater vector control measures and disease prevention counter- measures. Leishmania became an SBIR topic. Coleman and others established more SBIR AV-RDD topics to detect additional arboviruses such as the Rift Valley fever and dengue viruses. Cole- man served as the COR on these Phase I SBIRs and directed their development.
process ensues. Nineteen of these projects received Phase II contracts.
Along with Phase II enhancement and Phase III investment programs, the $450,000 leveraged through the SBIR program represents a 90 percent increase in the R&D budget dedicated to VPD. Tis increase in research capacity for a rela- tively small program comes as no surprise to J.R. Myers, USAMRMC’s SBIR project manager. “Motivated research groups such as the MERP are committed to partner- ing with small business innovators who are highly skilled and driven for success. Tis focus and dedication yields cutting- edge results for this program,” Myers said.
FROM CONCEPT TO CONTRACT Coleman, past head of the MERP, ini- tially leveraged the SBIR program to develop AV-RDDs in 2003, when he was serving as a major at a USAMRMC laboratory. As an entomologist deployed in Operation Desert Storm, Coleman was familiar with the limited scope of
120 Army AL&T Magazine April–June 2014
warfighter threat assessments in theater: collecting arthropods, shipping them stateside for pathogen detection and waiting in theater for the results. As he focused on developing a test or device for detecting arthropod-borne pathogens in the field, the AV-RDD effort materialized.
Coleman drafted an SBIR topic that focused on AV-RDDs for the plasmo- dium (malaria) parasite and arboviruses, or arthropod-borne viruses. After the topic received approval, he served as the contracting officer’s representative (COR) and awarded Phase I funding to three companies. After a down-select, followed by completion of a Phase II award, one company fielded the first AV-RDD for malaria with USAMRMC’s help.
Tis original SBIR topic allowed for fur- ther development of more AV-RDDs for arboviruses. Te same company devel- oped three more AV-RDDs (for the West Nile and the Eastern and Western equine encephalitis viruses) by 2007, which USAMRMC then fielded.
Te result is a much-improved detection process. AV-RDDs come in kits with the necessary materials to perform the test, such as sample holding tubes, grinding buffer and equipment for preparing the insects. Preventive medicine and ento- mologist personnel trap insects in the field, then sort and pool them by species. Te kit has a mortar and pestle that the researchers use for grinding up the bugs in a buffer solution. AV-RDDs can detect pathogens collected from arthropods in about 15 minutes.
DEVELOPMENT AND FIELDING Without leveraging the SBIR program, the MERP could not have developed any AV-RDDs. Te MERP budget is a modest $3.5 million, relying mainly on allocations from 6.2 (applied research) and 6.3 (advanced technology devel- opment) RDT&E dollars from the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, which must support seven different research programs on four continents. Te VPD program, which encompasses the AV-RDD program, represents approximately 25 percent of the MERP budget. Using the SBIR program and establishing contacts with companies that have expertise the government may
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