Assured Microbial Preservation in Harsh Or Remote Areas (AMPHORA)

Emerging infectious disease hotspots are expected to increase globally within the next 50 years. While technology has advanced agnostic lab-based testing, agnostic sample preservation still relies on antiquated cold chain transport that is difficult to acquire and often unreliable in remote, austere, and contested environments. Thus, samples critical to force health protection are significantly degraded upon lab receipt. The Assured Microbial Preservation in Harsh Or Remote Areas (AMPHORA) program will decouple sample preservation from cold chains enabling cold chain free storage and viability maintenance in austere and remote environments. AMPHORA systems will stabilize a broad range of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, preserving multiple samples in parallel, and ensuring samples are compatible with downstream analyses. Preservation systems will be rigorously tested using contrived and real-world samples to demonstrate real-world capability and generalizability.

All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal that shall be considered by DARPA. See the Eligibility Information section of the BAA for more information.