Newton Award for Transformative Ideas during the COVID-19 Pandemic:
This award will be presented to a single investigator or team of up to two investigators that develops a “transformative idea” to resolve challenges, advance frontiers, and set new paradigms in areas of immense potential benefit to DoD and the nation at large. Proposals should aim to produce novel conceptual frameworks or theory-based approaches that present disruptive ways of thinking about fundamental scientific problems that have evaded resolution, propose new, paradigm-shifting scientific directions, and/or address fundamental and important questions that are argued to be undervalued by the scientific community. Approaches can include analytical reasoning, calculations, simulations, and thought experiments. While data collection and production are therefore allowed, all supporting data should be generated without the use of laboratory-based experimentation or instrumentation.
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) seeks white papers for Prototype Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) funding to support COVID-19 prototypes in two areas: i) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Re-Use and Decontamination and ii) Prototype PPE: N95 Equivalent Masks that can be rapidly produced with alternate materials or methods. DLA anticipates funding of $1 million for multiple prototypes. White papers will be reviewed as they are received through the 5/4/2020 deadline.
DoD JATF is seeking input to shape its COVID-19 funding decisions focused on the accelerated ramp-up of production capacity for critical healthcare products such as masks, ventilators, test kits, and vaccines. JATF Focus Areas: 1) Combating Spread, 2) Welfare of Citizens, 3) Readiness, 4) Logistics, 5) Industrial base impacts, 6) Medical, 7) Other
The Army's Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) has posted an announcement of the possibility of RPPs to rapidly accelerate development of technology to detect exposure, prevent, contain and treat COVID-19 and future emerging threats in the following areas:
1) Point-of-care diagnostic that provides rapid and accurate determination on exposure to COVID-19.
2) Prophylactic(s)/Therapeutic(s) that can prevent and/or treat in a rapid manner (few hours to 2 days) potentially in a non-hospital environment. Repurposing FDA-approved drugs/biologics for prevention/treatment of COVID-19 or testing of drugs/biologics that have already demonstrated safety in humans for the prevention/treatment of COVID-19 are preferred.
3) Disease predictive modeling that provides early warning through data capture from several different streams of data to include social media and artificial intelligence (AI) parameter decision tools that would provide actionable information to medical service providers and command structures.
4) Patient monitoring, tracking, and management system for in-home or non-hospital environment patient tele-health services to include interface into the Cerner electronic health record.
The Army Futures Command’s (AFC) Army Applications Laboratory (AAL) has expressed significant interest in new technologies to support the Army’s COVID-19 response including innovative medical equipment, therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines. AAL has set up a webpage for organizations to schedule a brief phone call to discuss their ideas for technologies that support diagnosis, care, and the protection of healthcare providers, active duty service members, their families, and communities from COVID-19.
The Army's Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) has posted a pre-announcement for a Request for Project Proposals (RPP) to rapidly develop and deploy the National Emergency Telecritical Care Network (NETCCN).The program will support the extension of high-quality intensive care to traditional (e.g. critical access hospitals and clinics) and non-traditional and temporary healthcare facilities (e.g. field hospitals and gymnasiums) which lack adequate critical care expertise and resources necessary for care of COVID-19-related illnesses. This upcoming RPP will focus on enhanced development of integrated technologies and clinical workflows to establish and rapidly scale virtual wards. Enhanced white papers should specifically address providing EXISTING technologies (mobile communications, clinician-facing web portal/app, real-time documentation, cloud-based information storage...) available for other use cases that can be rapidly adapted to establish the NETCCN.
