DARPA BTO Announces Proposers Day for Advanced Plant Technologies Program

Lewis-Burke Associates LLC – November 21, 2017

On November 17, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO) announced a Proposers Day for the newly created Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) Program. The Proposers Day, in support of a planned Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), will be held on December 12, 2017 at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, VA.

The APT program seeks to control plant physiology to detect chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats as well as electromagnetic signals. Through this program, the Department of Defense (DOD) is investigating the potential for plants to meet these needs in environments unsuitable for traditional sensors, by taking advantage of the fact that plants are easily deployed, self-powering, and are generously ubiquitous in most environments. DARPA is looking for proposals to advance plant synthetic biology and bioengineering to develop sensors that can survive for months or years in a natural environment. Proposing teams should include experts in diverse fields including plant physiology, gene editing, biochemistry, modeling, phenotyping, remote sensing, and plant ecology.

Participants must register by December 6, 2017 at 12:00 PM EST or until the event reaches its capacity of 125 participants. Proposers may also register to participate via webcast until December 11, 2017 at 12:00PM EST or until 500 participants sign up. The Proposers Day also includes an opportunity for attendees to present their interests and capabilities in three-minute “lighting” presentations or on posters on a first-come, first-served basis.

Participant registration

Additional information:
• More information on the Advanced Plant Technologies program is available at https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-11-17.
• The Special Notice DARPA-SN-18-05 is available at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-18-05/listing.html.

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