The U.S. Department of Defense has recently awarded the following notable contract related to the field of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defense or life science research of interest for potential applications in biodefense:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been awarded an $11,085,634 cost-reimbursement contract with options under the Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules program.
The goal of the program is to develop a first-of-its-kind biotechnology infrastructure that enables transformative and currently inaccessible projects to provide new materials, flexible capabilities, and manufacturing paradigms for national security and public health. As a demonstration of the functionality and flexibility of the infrastructure being developed, the program aims to generate 1000 unique molecules and chemical building blocks of relevance to DoD.
Fiscal 2014 research and development funds in the amount of $8,583,435 are being obligated at the time of award. Work will be performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts (90 percent); Boston, Massachusetts (3 percent); Evanston, Illinois (4 percent); and San Francisco, California (3 percent), with an estimated completion date of November 2016.
This contract was a competitive acquisition. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-15-C-0084).
