DARPA taps three for project to control biological functions using microsystems and molecular catalysts

Summary points:

• Three organizations -- SRI International, CFD Research Corp., and UC Berkeley -- join the MICA project, which focuses on integrating microsystems with molecular catalysts to control biological functions.
• MICA aims to design nonliving artificial cells that can perform functions similar to living cells, enabling machines that self-repair, reason, and upgrade by merging biological, mechanical, and electronic systems.
• SRI, CFD Research, and UC Berkeley secured contracts totaling $20.5 million, advancing DARPA's goal of integrating microsystem technology with molecular design for applications in bioelectronics and artificial intelligence.

ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers have hired three more organizations for a project that seeks to control biological functions using microsystems and molecular catalysts.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., announced contracts in August to SRI International Menlo Park, Calif.; CFD Research Corp. in Huntsville, Ala.; and the University of California at Berkeley for the Microsystem Induced Catalysis (MICA) project.

Military researchers may use this kind of research in future hopes of designing nonliving artificial cells able to carry out functions of living cells for sensing, information processing, and self-repair to create machines that combine electronic, mechanical, and biological properties that ultimately could sense, reason, upgrade, and repair themselves.

SRI won a $10.7 million contract on 28 Aug. 2025; CFD Research won a $6.6 million contract on 19 Aug. 2025; and UC Berkeley won a $3.2 million contract on 26 Aug. 2025. They join Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, which won a $10.3 million MICA contract in July.

Cells and electronics

Electron flow in transistors sometimes are similar to molecular flows in biochemical reactions in living cells, and their similarities suggest that cells and electronic components could interact in a predictable and controllable way.

The MICA program focuses on using microsystems to control biological functions, and will seek hardware demonstrations of molecular catalysts immobilized to microsystem surfaces and controlled by physical forces generated by the microsystem.

Additionally, the program focuses on modeling and simulation of such integrated molecular microsystems, with an emphasis on biomolecular catalysts.

Tell me more about combining microsystems and biological systems ...

• Combining microsystems and biological systems -- often referred to as biomicroelectronics or bio-microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS) -- merges biology, microelectronics, and microsystems technologies to create devices that can interact with biological entities at a microscopic level. These devices can include biochips, lab-on-a-chip (LOC), microsensors, bioelectronics, biosensors, neural interfaces, microfluidics, tissue engineering and organ-on-a-chip, and artificial intelligence and machine learning in biomicrosystems. Potential applications include sensors that detect biological signals; brain-computer interfaces; environments that mimic biological tissues; and pattern recognition in biological systems.

MICA centers on how microsystems can control molecules; how microsystem physics can drive catalyst function; and how co-design approaches can integrate microsystems and molecules.

The MICA program's design and simulation portion will include ways to predict the dynamic performance of molecules integrated with microsystems. The project's fabrication portion will include ways to place and immobilize molecules at microsystem interfaces to help the microsystem control catalyst activity.

A major thrust is placing and attaching catalytic molecules to microsystems to drive biological function. The program will emphasize compatibility with standard microelectronics manufacturing.

Predicting molecule structure

The MICA contractors will determine how to predict molecule structure and function, and how to couple to a field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and CMOS digital logic circuits.

The MICA program involves companies with expertise in molecular design, microsystem design, and fabrication to integrate molecules with microsystems to control molecular function; and companies with expertise in modeling and simulating the performance of microsystem and molecule performance to develop tools for predicting integrated system performance.

For more information contact SRI International online at www.sri.com, CFD Research at www.cfd-research.com, Battelle at www.battelle.org, or DARPA at www.darpa.mil/news/2025/closing-integration-gap.