Kacey Roberts
Draper has secured a $34.1 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to develop a microphysiological system featuring interacting immune-competent micro-organ models to predict disease responses and evaluate medical countermeasures.
Under the Evaluation of Treatments using High-throughput Multi-Organ Systems contract award, the company said Thursday it will create a multi-organ platform to study the progression of high-priority biosafety level 3 agents and assess the safety and effectiveness of treatments.
The advanced models will include parenchymal, vascular and innate immune components to simulate diverse biological responses.
DTRA’s Vaccines/Therapeutics Division within its Joint Science and Technology Office will sponsor the ETHOS program.
Roger Odegard, the Draper ETHOS program manager, commented, “Draper looks forward to advancing these MPS-based capabilities for DTRA and their U.S. government partners in order to protect the warfighter against high-priority threats and accelerate our response to future threats.”
