Intelligence Value
The Biomaterial Structural Analyses for Use Recognition and Understanding Synthesis (B-SAURUS) program will enhance the Intelligence Community’s (IC’s) capability to secure supply chains, identify counterfeits, and combat illegal activities associated with illicit narcotics. B-SAURUS will establish new reverse engineering capabilities to address materials aligned with national security including energetics, illicit substances, and pharmaceuticals.
Summary
Emerging biotechnologies, particularly biomanufacturing, have the potential to disrupt or establish completely new supply chains for materials and molecules critical to US national security, including energetics, illicit or controlled substances, and pharmaceuticals. In some instances, these biomanufactured materials and molecules (BMMs) may utilize stolen intellectual property, originate from prohibited sources, or facilitate illegal activities. The IC must validate the origins and associated supply chains of these critical BMMs to prevent new vulnerabilities to US security interests. B-SAURUS will augment the IC’s ability to identify and characterize BMMs relevant to national security while extracting information related to critical supply chains, methods of biomanufacturing, technical capabilities, and equipment requirements.
B-SAURUS will develop processes and protocols to identify unique features that distinguish a BMM from those produced through conventional manufacturing processes, using these insights to better understand their production methods. Research teams will leverage advances in analytical instrumentation, synthetic biology, biomanufacturing, and data analytics (to include machine learning/super intelligence) to drive development of these revolutionary capabilities. The program aims to establish robust capabilities for reverse engineering BMMs now and in the future, focusing on adaptive methodologies rather than databases or “fingerprints” whose utility may fade as biomanufacturing processes proliferate.
The B-SAURUS program is expected to be a multi-performer, 18-month initiative in three phases; demonstrating feasibility, establishing capabilities against precursor BMMs, and demonstrating capabilities with formulated targets. The program aims to deliver protocols, molecular signatures and feature lists, and predictive software tools for BMM analysis to the IC to support national security interests.
