DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has opened a new division called Biological Technologies Office (BTO), which aims to develop biotechnologies. It’s a field in great development in recent years and the American agency intends to explore in particular the intersection of biology with physical sciences leading to a merge with engineering and computer science.
Last month, DARPA’s director Arati Prabhakar told the House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities that “Biology is nature’s ultimate innovator, and any agency that hangs its hat on innovation would be foolish not to look to this master of networked complexity for inspiration and solutions”.
The BTO will expand the work carried out by two other offices of the agency: DSO (Defense Sciences Office) and MTO (Microsystems Technology Office). Many advancements have been made in recent years in very different disciplines such as neuroscience, sensor design, microsystems, information technology and more. DARPA’s research started converging in some of these disciplines therefore it was necessary to coordinate more appropriately its future research.
DARPA is a military agency so its research focuses on applications that first of all are adpoted by the American armed forces. That’s why its efforts will focus on areas such as the soldiers’ skills with research on more sophisticated prostheses and neural interfaces.
BTO will also seek to further develop the knowledge of natural processes and the rules that govern biological systems. The aim is to develop biotechnology in a safe manner, also with a control function to defend against enemy biological weapons.
Biological research will have great importance in the BTO to prepare possible defenses against biological attacks but there’s more. Studies on the complexity of ecosystems will also be useful to develop applications that will aim to improve human health and ecological stability.
The applications of the technologies developed by DARPA are primarily military and the possibilities that could open up with BTO research are quite disturbing. It’s also true that DARPA invented the Internet, which has become a fundamental element of the life of our civil society. Let’s hope that these biotechnological research will have more civil than military applications as well!
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