Communications of the ACM
New Research Office to Further Explore 'bio-Technological Frontier'
Credit: Gizmag
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched the Biological Technology Office (BTO) to study the dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences. BTO says it aims to harness the power of biological systems by applying engineering tools to next-generation technologies that are inspired by the life sciences. "The Biological Technologies Office will advance and expand on a number of earlier DARPA programs that made preliminary inroads into the bio-technological frontier," says BTO director Geoff Ling.
The initial BTO portfolio includes the Hand Proprioception & Touch Interfaces program, which expands on the work of DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics and Reliable Neural-Interface Technology programs. "Before BTO, DARPA had a handful of biologists, neuroscientists, engineers, and the like, interested in synthesizing their work but distributed across different offices," Ling says. "Now we're under one roof, so to speak, and looking to attract a new community of scholars, who will bring a host of new ideas at the intersection of traditional and emerging disciplines."
BTO's mission includes restoring and maintaining warfighter abilities, harnessing biological systems, and applying biological complexity at scale.
From FedScoop
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found