A recent article published by the Department of Defense highlights the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Chemical and Biological Technologies Department (DTRA CB) contributions to the economy and technology advancements by providing the spark companies need to further development by the deeper pockets of venture capital.
The article cites the development of the Illumina, Inc. product line for genotyping, gene expression, copy-number variation and methylation analyses. “That started with early funding of work at Tufts University using a bead array concept as an analysis tool. Later, the bead arrays were diversified in their application to vapor sensing, which was funded through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) ‘Dog’s Nose program,’ an advanced, field-portable system for detecting land mines.”
The full line of Illumina products is now in wide use by not only the researchers at the Department of Defense, but at many other federal laboratories and major genome centers around the world.
Nels Olson, Ph.D., DTRA CB’s thrust coordinator for Sensing and Reporting and the Diagnostics Division’s senior advisor on biotechnology reagents, instruments and disposables, explains that while DTRA CB investments might be just a few million dollars, venture capitalists see it as a vetting process that proves the concept and encourages them to make the much larger investments. The government benefits when these innovations reach commercialization levels and are able to be purchased to protect warfighters in the field.
“DTRA can come up with some money to get the research going,” says Olson. “But it’s the $100-200 million investments by private capital after we show the idea will work that get the factories built and the technology cranked out at a viable cost to consumers, including DTRA.”
Read more at DVIDS: DTRA-CB initial investment money helps grow development
