Monthly Archives: February 2007

New 3D Vapor Displays- OR Versions to Come

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Engadget reports on IO2 Displays new M3 Heliodisplay system.  I have written before on these systems and played with them a bit (here is a video of my furry arm in one).  They are similar in many ways to fogscreen (video here) in that they all display a pseudo floating image on a film of water vapor fog.  Newer versions add gesture controlled interactvity.  I cannot stress enought how much  I believe gesture control will transform surgery.

The new version claims an improved tri-flow system for increased image stability and uniformity,” enhanced brightness and clarity, a 1,024 x 768 resolution, 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios, 2000:1 contrast ratio.

Right now these are party gizmos and great for promotional booths.  I predict future implementations of endoscopic surgery will employ floating 3-D images with gesture control. A theme I have been preaching loudly as I write on futuresurgery.

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Remote Controlled Flying Rats

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Danger Room reports an English People’s Daily article on Chinese scientists success at controlling the flight of pigeons with brain implants.  I have written before on direct brain-computer interfaces such as the monkey brain controlled robot arm, a woman with a robotic brain controlled limb, soldiers with brain controlled limbs, a paraplegic with a matrix-neural plug in his grey matter, and a brain cap interface for gaming.   Damn- Kurzweil even predicts that once the singularity comes we will all be downloading our brains into computers forming humans v 2.0. 

This new reports takes brain control one more step.  Chinese scientists implanted remote control interface chips into pigeon brains allowing them to direct their flight patterns.  The connection to rehabilitation, prosthetics, and neural research is obvious.

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Forget Pills- Let Drugs Trickle Out Your Teeth!

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Gizmag reports of a new dental drug resevoir devivery system.  Interesting.

a dental prosthesis capable of releasing accurate dosages into the mucous membranes in the mouth. As it can administer accurate micro amounts over continuous periods, the prosthesis overcomes the peak concentrations that occur with taking pills and even offers the ability to monitor and maintain consistent blood levels of any drug. What makes the Intellidrug prosthesis unique is that, unlike existing drug prostheses and implants, it is small enough to fit into two artificial molars. Inside the patient’s mouth, it is readily accessible and can easily be maintained and refilled. The dental prosthesis consists of a drug-filled reservoir, a valve, two sensors and several electronic components,” explains Dr. Oliver Scholz of the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT in St. Ingbert, where the sensors and electronics were developed.

“Saliva enters the reservoir via a membrane, dissolves part of the solid drug and flows through a small duct into the mouth cavity, where it is absorbed by the mucous membranes in the patient’s cheeks.”

The duct is fitted with two sensors that monitor the amount of medicine being released into the body. One is a flow sensor that measures the volume of liquid entering the mouth via the duct, while the other measures the concentration of the agent contained in the liquid. Based on the measurement results, the electronic circuit either opens or closes a valve at the end of the duct to control the dosage. If the agent has been used up, the electronic system alerts the patient via a remote control, which was also developed at the IBMT. This control permits wireless operation of Intellidrug, and can be used by the patient or doctor to set the dosage required.

The patient has to have the agent refilled every few weeks. This could be done using a deposit system whereby the patient swaps the empty prosthesis for a newly refilled one. At the same time, the battery could be replaced and the device could be serviced

The “serviced every 2 weeks part is not going to fly IMHO.

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New 3-wheel Hybrid Vehicle- motorcycle killer carver?

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This is bit off-topic for me but piqued my curisoity.  The Venture is  a step closer to hitting the US shores.  It’s also backed by BMW which won’t hurt.  What is it?  A brand new 100 MPH+ 3-wheel motor-pod steet carver.  As they write in gizmag:

February 16, 2007 Venture Vehicles has formally announced in Los Angeles, the development of a revolutionary (not to mention very cool), 3-wheel, tilting, plug-in Hybrid vehicle under the working name VentureOne. It’s a two-passenger Hybrid vehicle that will get 100 mpg, accelerate from 0-60 in 6 seconds, will have a top speed of over 100 mph, while being priced at under US$20,000. In addition to the low-emission, flex-fuel Hybrid model, a zero-emission all-electric version is also being developed that will have an all-electric range of nearly 200 miles. A key feature of the VentureOne is the patented Dynamic Vehicle Control tilting technology from Dutch-based Carver Engineering that allows the body of the vehicle to actually tilt when going through turns while all three wheels maintain firm contact with the road. Carver already sells petrol-engined versions of the machine, and the Phiaro 3-wheeler is also closely based on the Carver. But a plug-in hybrid with a 200 mile electric range and sportscar performance is very enticing. Production is not scheduled until late 2008 and Venture Vehicles will initially offer two propulsion packages for the VentureOne: the hybrid E50 and Q100, and all-electric Venture EV model. The US$23,000 all-electric model will top the range while the E50 hybrid will sell for US$18,000 and the Q100 hyrbid is expected to be priced under US$20,000.

check out the links to the compnay above to see some cool videos.  One concern, the thing is WAY low to the ground.  Not too cool with all those Hummers driving around…

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Flawed Research: The Hidden Weakness of Peer Review & More Falsified Stem Cells

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The point of this post is not about stem cell research it is about flaws in the peer review process.  However, I need to start with a little timely news and some background first.

In yet another blow to stem cell research, New Scientist reports today that one of the best-known stem cell papers in the past five years, describing adult cells that seemed to hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells is based on likely flawed (or false) data.

Everyone will recall the Korean Stem cell-cloning mess recently. There, Hwang Woo Suk admitted that none of the 11 tailor-made cell colonies he claimed to have created actually exist (and that women were coerced to donate their eggs).  More details of this fiasco are reported here and the retraction of the paper from the journal Science here. 

The latest stem cell mess-scenario seems to be yet another garden variety data falsification.  The new paper prints data that is later found to be exactly used in another paper from the same group but on different cells – (coincidence- methinks not)! 

What’s more interesting to docinthemachine here is the inherent flaws in the peer review system.  Its just like that old bad legal joke:  a jury of your peers means a group of people too stupid or lazy to get out of jury duty (a sad commentary on civic duty and the legal system but hey that’s another post for the politico-blogs).  Unfortunately, the medical peer review process shares some similarities.  I have served as a journal reviewer for many journals and have reviewed original research since I was a resident through fellowship and on as an assistant professor.  I have several disquieting observations. Since I have an extensive network of colleagues, mentors, and mentees (is that a word?) from many different departments and universities (many who just have sought my advice) the following cannot be taken as representative of any particular person I have worked with.  Sorry – not naming names here. 

Where Peer Review Fails:

1) the trickle down review.  A journal reviewer is chosen to review submitted manuscripts based on his past academic accomplishments, expertise in the area of research, and reputation.  However, it is commonplace for academic faculty members, division directors, and departmental chairs to pass the reviews on to junior faculty and fellows-in-training.  On the positive side, when done collaboratively this can be an excellent leaning opportunity for the junior person.  They do extensive research on the topic and prepare an exhaustive report for the senior faculty member who sits down with them and prepares the final review teaching all along the way.  Yes, but we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto!  On the bad side, the lazy senior faculty member passes it on the junior (lacking in the expertise or knowledge) who does his best but does an inadequate job.  The lazy mentor simply says thanks, signs his name, and passes the crap off as his own.  Yep, seen it happen. 

2) The lazy reviewer.  A journal submission goes to more than one reviewer.  Often the reviewers see the comments from the other reviewer.  On many occasions I have completed my review with a dozen points for the author to fix, clarify, or amend.  Sometimes these include very serious research flaws.  Heck, I take the job seriously.  All the more reason I get shocked to see the other reviewer chime back with 2-3 lines of comments, at least one of which is spelling or grammar.  They just did not give it much effort.  This reminds of the couples that come in where the wife speaks little English and the husband translates.  I ask a question, he translates.  She goes on for 5 minutes passionately answering to him- sounds pretty concerned to me.  He turns to me and replies “she says no”.  Something is getting lost in the translation and it’s not accidental.  I remember a seminal paper I wrote along co-authors who are world famous pioneers and leaders in reproductive medicine.  This thing was infamous in my circles since it went through more than 35 major revision drafts over 7 years before my mentor judged it complete.  (for those interested it was a reappraisal of the basic theory of the role of estrogen in human follicular and egg development refuting classical theories – Are Estrogens of Import to Primate/Human Ovarian Folliculogenesis? from Endocrine Reviews and can be found here).  Well I remember my shock when the reviewers comments came back with pages of suggestions!  This guy did MASSIVE research double checking and commenting on minutia in the paper but did 1000% his job as a reviewer (we went on the address all of his concerns). 

3) Bad reviewer choice A.  Some journals have a shortage of good reviewers.  As a result they have a second tier group who just don’t meet the muster in terms of qualifications.  Happens more with very clinically oriented journals.  A related issue is in some of the newer surgical journals.  Many of the leading surgeons on the”cutting edge” (sorry) are amazing pioneers but not necessarily researchers.  Many of the lead academics are amazing researcher but not pioneers in these fields.  Therefore the reviewer tends to be only 1/2 of what’s needed. 

4) Bad reviewer choice B.  The reviewer gets a paper to review that he is really not a expert on.  In the best case he taps out and declines the review.  In the worst case he accepts to do the review but misses a lot.  I have seen this one getting calls “hey Steve- you’re an expert on so and so – I got this paper to review but don’t know anything about this – can you give it a look?”

5) The editor over-ruling the reviewer.  Reviewer finds errors and recommends rejection. Editor accepts the paper and it goes on the be revealed to be a bad study.  Seen it happen.

I even remember a teaching conference we ran briefly when I was at Yale “bad research papers”. We would pull papers that really had flaws and have the fellows comment on what was wrong to teach methodologies etc. 

All in all the medical literature is a living breathing organism.  That’s why internet research by inadequately trained or educated readers can be so faulty.  You can find SOME paper to support both sides of an argument or hypothesis.  A real expert knows them all and weighs the bunch on their merits and methodology to try to come to the best conclusion.  A single paper taken out of its context of the entire literature is just a piece of the puzzle.  If you don’t know research methods and the other studies you are getting set up to draw incorrect conclusions.  This is one of the problems in the courtroom where in expert testimony papers are weighed equally.  It’s the reason why I never draw conclusions on areas where I am not an expert. 

In a sense this is at the basis of the trend towards evidence based medicine.  Instead of just an expert or committee’s opinion research is judged and ranked according to its quality and conclusions drawn and then the results apllied to the individual patient.  It’s a mantra for the modern specialist!  You can read a nice piece on EBM from BMJ here including this definition:

Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research. By individual clinical expertise we mean the proficiency and judgment that individual clinicians acquire through clinical experience and clinical practice. Increased expertise is reflected in many ways, but especially in more effective and efficient diagnosis and in the more thoughtful identification and compassionate use of individual patients’ predicaments, rights, and preferences in making clinical decisions about their care. By best available external clinical evidence we mean clinically relevant research, often from the basic sciences of medicine, but especially from patient centered clinical research into the accuracy and precision of diagnostic tests (including the clinical examination), the power of prognostic markers, and the efficacy and safety of therapeutic, rehabilitative, and preventive regimens. External clinical evidence both invalidates previously accepted diagnostic tests and treatments and replaces them with new ones that are more powerful, more accurate, more efficacious, and safer

For those wishing to go deep into this area check out extensive resources at UW EMB here and the categories of research levels of evidence here. 

You can read my thoughts about the future of electronic medical research and publishing here.

MORE: great discussion on the flaws of the peer review process on the thread at slashdot.  Obviously over fraud and falsified data is at the top of the crap heap.

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3 New Approvals from the FDA

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The FDA has announced 2 new device approvals (and one bonus end the end of the post).  All of these are pretty straight-forward in their uses so I’ll be brief this time!

1) FDA Clears First of Its Kind Suture Made Using DNA Technology

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced it has cleared for marketing in the U.S. the TephaFLEX Absorbable Suture—the first absorbable polymer suture made from material isolated from bacteria modified by recombinant DNA technology.

Recombinant DNA technology uses living organisms to create chemicals that may be more difficult to produce under standard industrial methods.

“The TephaFLEX Absorbable Suture is made from material that uses the latest DNA technology,” said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, FDA. “This approach could have broader applications for medical devices that use this novel manufacturing technology.”

FDA based its decision on the company’s laboratory and animal testing that examined chemical composition, biological safety and mechanical performance of the polymeric suture. The company provided data to show that the suture could be manufactured in a consistent and safe manner.

FDA reviewed safety and effectiveness information for the device under the de novo petition process. De novo petitions were added under the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 to find a way for novel but less risky products to get to market. As a result of its review, FDA determined that products of this type will be regulated as class II (moderate-risk) devices.

 

2) FDA Clears Critical Limb-Saving Vascular Device

Another bonus to the truama surgeons courtesy of out friends at DARPA. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today cleared for U.S. marketing a vascular shunt, a medical device that can help save the arms and legs of soldiers critically injured in combat as well as individuals in other trauma settings and emergency situations. The Temporary Limb Salvage Shunt (TLSS), made by Vascutek Ltd. (Renfrew, Scotland), was reviewed by FDA in less than one week because of the critical need for such a device.

“This device offers surgeons a new tool to potentially avoid the need for limb amputation following traumatic injury,” said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, FDA. “This device has been used successfully by other countries, and is particularly important to serve our men and women in the Armed Forces who are seriously injured in combat.”

The device works by connecting together the ends of a severed blood vessel, providing a bridge or shunt around the damaged area and restoring blood flow to the injured limb. It can be implanted on the battlefield and other remote areas to bypass damaged blood vessels and temporarily maintain blood flow to the injured limb until the patient can be transported to a surgical facility.

The TLSS is a tube formed from two layers of plastic. The device has several features that optimize its use in a trauma situation, including a self-sealing elastomer membrane that permits drugs to be injected directly into the shunt without loss of blood; beveled ends that facilitate quick and effective placement of the device within the severed blood vessel; graduated markings that provide visual confirmation of proper device placement; and extra reinforcement in the center of the device so it can be cut to a shorter length if needed.

To facilitate this accelerated review process, the device manufacturer worked in close collaboration with FDA’s Division of Cardiovascular Devices after discussion of the need for the device with the U.S. Air Force. There are currently no other devices specifically available for treating injuries of this nature.

3) the bonus- FDA Approves the First Drug for Obese Dogs

Just what we needed fat pills for fido.  This clearly show that the impetus to device and drug development is go where the money is.  A sorry comment on our priorities.  Can’t we try low-cal dog food?  Hey I got my million dollar idea!  Laparoscopic doggie gastric bypass!  I gotta go patent this one…  (check out the last line on adverse effects YUMMY!)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today is announcing the approval of Slentrol (dirlotapide), a prescription drug for the management of obesity in dogs. Slentrol reduces appetite and fat absorption to produce weight loss. A veterinarian will determine whether the dog should be treated, based on the dog’s weight and general health.

“This is a welcome addition to animal therapies, because dog obesity appears to be increasing,” said Stephen Sundlof, D.V.M., Ph.D., director of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. “Veterinarians are well aware that overweight pets are at a higher risk of developing various health problems, from cardiovascular conditions to diabetes to joint problems.”

Veterinarians generally define a dog that weighs 20 percent more than its ideal weight as obese. Surveys have found that approximately 5 percent of dogs in the United States are obese, and another 20-30 percent are overweight.

Slentrol is a new chemical entity, called a selective microsomal triglyceride transfer protein inhibitor, which blocks the assembly and release of lipoproteins into the bloodstream. The mechanism for producing weight loss is not completely understood, but seems to result from reduced fat absorption and a satiety signal from lipid-filled cells lining the intestine.

The drug is given to the dog in varying amounts over the course of the treatment. The dog is given an initial dose for the first 14 days. After that, the veterinarian will assess the dog’s progress at monthly intervals, adjusting the dose depending on the dog’s weight loss. After the dog has achieved the goal weight, the drug’s manufacturer recommends continued use of the drug during a three-month period, while the veterinarian and dog owner establish the optimal level of food intake and physical activity needed to maintain the dog’s weight.

Adverse reactions associated with treatment with Slentrol include vomiting, loose stools, diarrhea, lethargy and loss of appetite.

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DARPA 2007 Pt2: Major Achievements, Future Plans, & Medical Benefits

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As I previously reported, DARPA has announced its strategic plan for 2007.  In this part 2 of my analysis of what their future will bring us, I will summarize their major system achievements to date. No doubt there have beeen hundreds of amazing projects with countless devices that were produced.  Here are the top major areas where they propelled advancement and a roadmap for the major future target projects and my view of the potential medical offshoots of each.  If you are unfamiliar with how and why the military’s R&D projects leads to revolutionary medicine more than biomed industry read the details here first.

DARPA was launched in 1957 after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, and therefore all the initial projects were space related.  In fact, the creation of NASA alsmost saw the dismatling of DARPA. 

DARPA Lists the following as their major accomplishments.  After this list you’ll find their 2007 and future projects and my medical offshoot benefit predictions.

1) Stealth Technology for Aircraft:  DARPA began developing the technologies for stealthy aircraft in the early 1970s under the HAVE BLUE program, which led to prototype demonstrations in 1977 of the Air Force’s F-117 tactical fighter (of Desert Storm fame). After the DARPA HAVE BLUE Stealth Fighter program, DARPA launched the TACIT BLUE technology demonstration, contributing directly to the development of the B-2 bomber.

2) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles:  The Global Hawk and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been seeing considerable battlefield use in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. DARPA started on the concept of a high altitude, long-range, unmanned system in the 1970s with the TEAL RAIN program. The Tier 2 Predator medium-altitude endurance UAV evolved directly from DARPA’s AMBER and Gnat 750-45 designs and was operationally deployed in the mid-1990s.

3) The Internet:  Sorry Al Gore, it was actually DARPA that invented the internet.  The most well known of all DARPA technologies began in the 1960s-1970s with the development of the ARPANet and its associated TCP/IP network protocol architecture. DARPA’s development of packet switching is the fundamental element of both public and private networks spanning the DoD, the Federal Government, U.S. industry, and the world.

MAJOR FUTURE ICONIC PLANS:  The Strategic plan for 2007 lays out the following major strategic plans of focus- along with my view of potential medical applications

• Chip-Scale Atomic Clock: miniaturizing an atomic clock to fit on a chip to provide very accurate time as required, for example, in assured network communications – technology could be used on various implantable diagnostic devices as well as for implantable next generation pacemakers and regulatory bioimplants


• Global War on Terrorism: technologies to identify and defeat terrorist activities such as the manufacture and deployment of improvised explosive devices- will lead to the development of new smart diagnostic chips and devices.  While initially these will screen for explosives and threat molecules, in the future these could identify tumor markers, metabolomic molecules, drug levels, and countless diagnostic and therapeutic molecules.

• Air Vehicles: unmanned air vehicles that quickly arrive at their mission station and can loiter there for very long periods.  The development of unmanned rover devices will directly affect the ability to produce and control implantable miniaturized diagnostic rovers placed into the human body.

• Space: The U.S. military’s ability to use space is one of its major strategic advantages, and DARPA is working to ensure the United States maintains that defense advantage.  Space medicine research will directly come from this next generation of off-world research.  It is still unknown what new types of materials can be produce in weightless ness and how 0-gravity will affect biologically systems.  The research is coming…

• High Productivity Computing Systems: supercomputers are fundamental to a variety of military operations, from weather forecasting to cryptography to the design of new weapons;DARPA is working to maintain our global lead in this technology.  Supercomputers will directly be used to crack genetic codes and to test potential new therapeutic molecules.  The future of expanded supercomputing will see a shift to much more of the process being done on-line as opposed to on the bench-top.  Genes will be identified, their proteins calculated, and therapeutic drugs designed and initially tested in the virtual world. 
• Real-Time Accurate Language Translation: real-time machine language translation of structured and unstructured text and speech with near-expert human translation accuracy.  Not sure on this one.  Maybe it will just let me get tech support form Dell better.  Then again, I never got a chance to take that spanish for doctors course so this would have helped a lot in the ER to get a better history!

• Biological Warfare Defense: technologies to accelerate the development and production of vaccines and other medical therapeutics from 12 years to only 12 weeks.  Medical use is obvious on this one.

• Prosthetics: developing prosthetics that can be controlled and perceived by the brain, just as with a natural limb.  Medical use is obvious.

• Quantum Information Science: exploiting quantum phenomena in the fields of computing, cryptography, and communications, with the promise of opening new frontiers in each area.  Fundemental new knowledge in how materials operate.  Countless medical implications as we change our understanding.
• Newton’s Laws for Biology: DARPA’s Fundamental Laws of Biology program is working to bring deeper mathematical understanding and accompanying predictive ability to the field of biology, with the goal of discovering fundamental laws of biology that extend across all size scales.  Medical implications are staggering, huge, and obvious.

• Low-Cost Titanium: a completely revolutionary technology for extracting titanium from the ore and fabricating it promises to dramatically reduce the cost for military-grade titanium alloy, making it practical for many more applications.  Could lead to low weight high strength implants, surgical tools, and prosthetics.

• Alternative Energy: technologies to help reduce the military’s reliance on petroleum.  Can afford to drive to the hospital.

•High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System: novel, compact, high power lasers making practical small-size and low-weight speed-of-light weapons for tactical mobile airand ground-vehicles.  Potential new therapuetic energy source for surgery.

Stay tuned for Part 3 on ongoing projects for 2007 from DARPA…

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Matrix Bullet-Time Slow Motion Camera

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“Bullet time is a broken rule of the matrix that lets the one and the agents dodge bullets”

Nova Sensors has developed an ultra high speed camera for the Air Force that can see and track speeding bullets in real time airflight.  While a military camera today the potential implications are huge…

Current System and Its Intended Use:  The system as it is currently being developed has primary use as a bullet sniper detection and tracking system.  A round of gunfire can be seen and tracked by the ultra high speed cameras.  Automated systems will be developed to detect and follow and track the source of the gunfire.  For example, in JFK’s shooting this system could have seen the bullets, counted them, identified what kind of gun, and listed how many rounds and the source(s) of all of them. In the future an unamanned drone will then fly off and examine or eliminate the source.

You can see a prototype video of the system in action here:  It shows several bullets being tracked in flight.

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David Hambling’s analysis of the system reported on how this system of superhuman artifical eye works:

Nova Sensors’ system includes software that mimics the fovea in human and animal eyes. The fovea is the dense region of light receptors at the center of the eye used for detailed vision: reading, driving a car or examining objects closely.

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The electronic version consists of a sensor with a 320-by-256 array of pixels and software that concentrates on “areas of interest,” like a virtual fovea would do. The areas of interest are at maximum resolution, while everything else in VAST’s field of view is seen at a lower resolution. This two-tier system allows VAST to devote maximum processing power to certain areas, while monitoring a much wider field of view.

High-speed sensors traditionally require subjects to be lit by a strobe or flash photography — otherwise they’re too dark to detect. In contrast, the VAST system detects objects by the heat they emit instead of by the light. Because of this ability, the VAST sensor “sees” bullets in the midinfrared.

So you see it is yet another infrared next-generation visualization system. 

Geek Techno-wonk Explanations of how the system works can be found here. 

May Lead to Ultrafast Cameras: Nova CEO Massie believes that the development will lead to ultra-fast, ultra-compact cameras.  “Mimicking tracking functions of the human visual system will permit future infrared cameras to provide the most salient high-speed imagery in cameras that are very small in size, may be operated on battery power, and produce very low-output bandwidth data,” he says.

and ultra-high speed tiny low power cameras sound like medical and implantable biologic system analyzers to me…

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DARPA Releases Strategic Plan 2007

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DARPA (the defense advanced research projects agency) has released its 2007 strategic plan.  This magnum opus of military future tech neatly lays out the priorities and plans for this amazing agency that has led to so much medical innovation.  I will summarize the key points of the report in a series of posts and tie these in to the medical breakthroughs that may result.  For those in need of background you can read about the Army & DARPA’s future soldier Landwarrior program and its medtech offshoots here as well as why DARPA does medical research and development that industry won’t.

Why the report was issued:

(To) describe the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) strategy,as required by Section 2352, Title 10 of the United States Code. It provides a top-level view of DARPA’s activities for Congress, the research community, and various elements of the Department of Defense (DoD).  This strategic plan describes DARPA’s mission, business processes, research thrusts and objectives, and research projects that achieve the objectives. 

DARPA’s Mission: 

DARPA’s original mission, inspired by the Soviet Union beating the United States into space with Sputnik, was to prevent technological surprise. This mission has evolved over time.  Today, DARPA’s mission is to prevent technological surprise for us and to create technological surprise for our adversaries. Stealth is one example of how DARPA created technological surprise.

The concept of strategic thrusts:

DARPA’s strategy for accomplishing its mission is embodied in strategic thrusts. Over time, as threats and opportunities change, DARPA’s strategic thrusts evolve. Today there are nine strategic thrusts, detailed in Section 3, that are key national security research areas building the foundations for innovative joint warfighting capabilities to defeat existing and emerging national security threats. DARPA’s main tactic for executing its strategy is to constantly search worldwide for revolutionary high-payoff ideas and then sponsor projects that bridge the gap between fundamental discoveries and the provision of new military capabilities.

Bridging the Gap between Near and Far (-term developments)

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DARPA looks beyond today’s known needs and requirements. As military historians note, “None of the most important weapons transforming warfare in the 20th century – the airplane, tank, radar, jet engine, helicopter, electronic computer, not even the atomic bomb – owed its initial development to a doctrinal requirement or request of the military.”  None of them. Adding to this list, DARPA can include unmanned systems, stealth, the global positioning system (GPS), which was preceded by a DARPA system called Transit, and Internet technologies.  DARPA’s approach is to imagine what capabilities a future military commander might need and
accelerate those capabilities into being through technology demonstrations. These could not only provide options to the commander, but also change minds about what is technologically possible today and how current and future objectives could be met. DARPA often “works the seams” among the military Services to develop new and truly joint capabilities that no military Service could or would support by itself.

You can read the full text of the 2007 report here. 

Stay tuned for my in-depth analysis of the report…

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