Environmental Microbial Microflora Differentiation Between Cities

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD) is seeking information on potential partners, technologies, and/or methods to enhance the Federal Government’s understanding of the presence, identity, and abundance of microbes that may create background noise, distortion, delay, or general interference in future agnostic detection/identification via genetic sequencing/metagenomic screening efforts for pathogens of national security concern. The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to collate information on capabilities available through private industry and academia that could be leveraged to improve the biothreat detection and identification accuracy of disease diagnostics conducted across the U.S. Some key points to consider include: • Identification and analysis of knowledge gaps in metagenomic sequencing data for domestic microbial microflora and fauna • Benefits to future biothreat detection and identification that would be provided by a metagenomic sequencing approach to microflora and fauna differentiation between US cities • Plan and execute development of ‘metagenomic ‘baselines’ in select US cities that address geographical, seasonal, diurnal/nocturnal, local weather conditions • Analysis of collected environmental background data to determine trends and how different microflora and fauna may impact the effectiveness current and future PCR- and sequencing-based biological threat detection activities in cities across the US