PARTNERING FOR THE WARFIGHTER
expertise and provides access to its one-of-a-kind chemical biolog- ical research and testing infrastructure. In return, the partner company offers its own specialized expertise, ability to commer- cially manufacture and entrepreneurial energy.
Te result is twofold. New chemical biological defense technologies get into the hands of warfighters faster, and industry, particu- larly technology startup companies, benefits from new business.
What is easy to miss among the legal agreements and the tech- nology development is the human story behind every successful DEVCOM CBC commercial partnership. With each partner- ship comes a team of DEVCOM CBC researchers that sees the importance of meeting a real warfighter need and understand that partnering with the right company in the private sector will get the job done, going from applied research all the way to a fielded device. Keeping the warfighter better protected in the field is a team endeavor. Each partnership adds private industry entre- preneurs to the effort. Tey recognize the value of the research team’s new technology and appreciate the value of public-private sector partnership.
FROM COUNTERTOP TO POCKET Two DEVCOM CBC researchers, Jennifer Sekowski, Ph.D., and Kelley Betts, developed the Pocket Detection Pouch using seed money from an internal fund designed to test promising new ideas. It is a simple-to-use device that simultaneously tests for the presence of synthetic opioids and chemical and biological agents. It came about because Betts had a eureka moment in her kitchen. Her husband already had been deployed several times, and she wanted to find a way to make him safer by creating a field test for threat agents that would require no power source, provide quick results and fit in his pocket. What she and Sekowski came up with was a set of small channels inside a plastic bag that moves a liquid, sampled in the field and placed in the bag, over strips of paper that change color in the presence of agent. Te paper reveals the presence of an agent based on the color change. “I questioned the traditional paradigm that threat agents can only be analyzed
PROOF POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE
The Pocket Detection Pouch contains strips that change color in minutes to indicate the presence of chemical or biological agents as well as opioids. (Photo by Gabriella White, DEVCOM CBC)
using a test tube or cassette,” said Betts. “I wondered if we could test using something different, like perhaps a pouch.”
During field testing starting in 2019, Betts could see that they had a hit on their hands. During a technology demonstration event at Camp Dawson, West Virginia, a Soldier told them that the Pocket Detection Pouch should be considered as a new DOD program of record because it has the ability to amplify current capabilities and can provide security forces with a quick fentanyl response without calling in hazardous material specialists. A member of
TACBIO Gen II was designed to be a lightweight, field-portable biological agent detection device.
70 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2024
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