Researchers ask industry for modeling and simulation of disease outbreak from biological warfare attack
ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers are approaching industry for biological warfare software modeling to simulate disease outbreak and spread from man-made pathogens to understand outbreak dynamics and to improve preparedness for future public health emergencies.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., issued a request for information (DARPA-SN-25-72) on Friday for the Advanced Disease Outbreak Simulation Capabilities project.
Researchers seek to model disease transmission and end-stage health effects at the person-to-person, local, regional, and global levels to help defend against emerging and unknown biological warfare threats.
Modeling and simulation
DARPA is seeking state-of-the-art modeling and simulation of disease outbreaks to understand outbreak dynamics and to improve preparedness for future public health emergencies. The project is to develop new capabilities in biosurveillance, diagnostics, and medical countermeasures. The project also seeks to improve understanding of factors that drive outbreak spread and evaluate the effectiveness of potential solutions.
Researchers want an overview of current and emerging technologies for disease outbreak simulation; how simulation approaches could extend beyond standard modeling; and how diseases spread among people. This project also seeks to develop new ways to detect, identify, and respond to disease outbreaks, including biosensor density deployment.
Researchers particularly are interested in modeling approaches; disease dynamics; spatial modeling; transmission rate modeling; fatality rate and immune status; intervention strategies; future innovation; software and programming languages; computational requirements; scalability and performance; data integration; and validation and verification.
Researchers are looking for suggestions on the best software and computer hardware on which to build simulation tools; the best programming languages for simulations; and computational resources necessary to run simulations, such as CPU, GPU, memory, and data storage.
Companies interested should email responses no later than 23 June 2025 to DARPA-SN-2572@ darpa.mil, with reference to Disease Outbreak Simulation RFI.
Email questions or concerns to DARPA-SN-2572@ darpa.mil. More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/13488b64cea148b4844f07c797633eed/view.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
