Convergence Special Notice

The Convergence program aims to integrate biology and engineering to develop advanced environmental microbial biosensors designed to safeguard defense personnel. The program will bring together synthetic biologists, environmental scientists, and engineering experts to transition biological sensors safely from controlled laboratory settings to the field. The key objectives of the program include: * Enable standoff detection & identification of chemical threat agents using biosensors * Design and test biosensors to meet the demands of the Defense lifecycle and its operational environments * Develop open-architecture, composable biosensor design approaches and an industrial pipeline to rapidly develop, build, & field deploy new biosensors The program is structured across four parallel tiers and will require strong teaming efforts by the proposers to successfully innovate and integrate multidisciplinary critical technologies.