Military Times: Pentagon Invests Millions

Pentagon Investing Millions in Battlefield Rapid Disease Detection

March 7, 2024

When the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the world, the U.S. military was forced to conduct hundreds of emergency medical evacuations out of combat zones, pause critical training evolutions, and redirect vast amounts of medical and logistics resources toward fighting the mysterious and deadly disease.

Today, with COVID-related panic in the rearview, researchers are focused on Pathogen X – a hypothetical next pandemic-causing disease that might be mitigated or contained with better preparation.

Rapidly diagnosing and categorizing Pathogen X is one of the use cases officials at the Pentagon’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program reportedly see for GeneCapture, a developmental technology that creators and funders say can diagnose infections and pathogen families within an hour for about $20 per test — compared with 72 hours and around $160 for more conventional broad-edged testing… Read the full article in Military Times here.