WHITE PAPER

IDHS Environmental Bioterrorism Detection CONOPS

Title: [Regional Environmental Biothreat Detection Network]

Period of Performance: 2/2006 – 7/2006 (6 months)

Estimated Cost of Task: $150,000

Category that is being bid: [EBD]

[December 22, 2005]

Technical Point of Contact Contracting Contact Name Mr. Martin Dudziak Mrs. Dannie Marko Mail Address

Global InfoTek Inc. 1920 Association Drive Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191

Global InfoTek Inc. 1920 Association Drive Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191

Phone Number (202) 415-7295 (703) 652-1600 x233 Fax Number (703) 652-1697 (703) 652-1697 E-mail Address mdudziak@globalinfotek.com admin@globalinfotek.com

CAGE Code: 07AE7

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IDHS EBD

A. CONOPS Task Objective and Relevant Mission Areas West Nile Virus and Avian Flu are among the most well-known high-consequence diseases with critical vectors involving the natural environment. Association of early warnings and indicators that span large geographic regions is recognized as one of the keys to early interdiction of potential outbreaks that could affect millions of inhabitants. Global InfoTek, Inc. (GITI) proposes to coordinate a multi-center program to evaluate and prototype a deployable network for detection of bioterrorist and related biothreat outbreaks affecting wildlife populations that could be indicative of epidemic or pandemic-proportion dangers to the environment including humans. Global InfoTek (GITI) will develop new concepts of operations (CONOPS) for a Regional Environmental Biothreat Detection Network (REDBIONET) that leverages existing biodefense sensing and analysis systems plus emerging new diagnostic tools to enable coordination of information and reporting. The central feature of the GITI approach is the integration of two major components – prediction and diagnostic response, in both cases operating in near real-time. The predictive component is based upon the adaptation of the RODS (Regional Outbreak Detection System) that has been developed under BioWatch and NIH support at the University of Pittsburgh, Center for Bioinformatics, and which is currently in use by nearly 500 hospitals and clinics worldwide, collecting data from emergency rooms, clinics, and also analyzing prescription medicine purchases nationwide. This predictive component will be coupled with the knowledge development and dissemination technologies and tools developed by GITI for DARPA and ARDA(DTO) as well as other intelligence and military programs, primarily addressing the detection of novel associations, relationships and hypotheses. These resources will be integrated with environmental toxicity and microbiotic investigation protocols in current use and under development by the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The diagnostic response component is based upon a threefold integration of technology plus methodology: • software deriving from GITI’s knowledge-based situation awareness and coordinated

response technologies, some now in deployment, beyond the R&D phase, with the US Army • regional health information technologies being co-developed by UPMC and IBM • a breakthrough nucleic acid based diagnostic system produced by STMicroelectronics for

rapid (15-30 min.) multi-pathogen diagnosis including such pathogens as avian flu virus With the In-Check system, it is possible to respond to suspicious behaviors and samples with accurate diagnostic reports that upon completion will be introduced seamlessly and automatically into a response coordination network. In-Check is currently being tested in a large number of clinical settings within the Americas, Europe and Asia. We regard this PCR-based diagnostic approach as critical for the realistic success of any EBD solution. Our evaluation and testing components, derived from previous defense and intelligence programs, will enable systematic and rapid review of alternative methods in which sensor placement, data collection, and field diagnostics can be optimized to reduce response time and fill in gaps of coverage. Global InfoTek believes that the combination of experienced people and organizations assembled for this phase I program will pave the way for demonstrable results in the form of

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IDHS EBD

environmentally portable prototypes by the time the phase I work is completed, with the capability for widely deployable systems including remote, semi-automated sensing and data collection, to follow in the course of phase 2 development. The strength of our approach is that we are bringing into the picture a deep understanding and expertise, drawing upon internal and external specialists, of the entire problem of environmental biothreat and bioterrorist detection and also response including verification, validation, removal of false positives, and action in the form of medical procedures. Furthermore, we bring into the picture several proven and demonstrable components including existing versions of intelligent software, integration tools, test platforms, and the MEMS-based microfluidic chips and diagnostic panels for addressing some of the critical diseases that can be threats to the United States, whether introduced by intentional (terrorist), accidental or natural means.

B. Technical Summary and Objectives and Operational Demonstration Our approach has two elements – prediction and diagnostic response – and we will conduct our work on both tracks with an objective of fusing the evaluations and plan-building into a system that can serve simultaneously as demonstration, evaluation test bed and a field-ready utility for addressing interdependent issues: • Integration of military, public health and homeland security networks for surveillance and

monitoring of natural and intentionally-introduced anomalies indicative of bio-threats • Mitigation of false positives without the cost of incurring false negatives • Provision of rapid dissemination of information to planners and responders in crisis situations • Rapid distribution of diagnostic and therapeutic measures to prioritized sites of need The most important first step is to review how current and projected systems, especially those developed under prior programs at DHS Centers of Excellence and the BioWatch program, can be integrated into a plan that is extensible to both local and national scope. For this the performance results of programs such as those at the RODS Laboratory and the Center for Environmental Oncology are appropriate and valuable as concrete starting points. It is in our plan to carefully assess both the data from several experiments as well as the collection and analysis methodologies. We plan to also work with results from environmental bio-threat activity conducted by groups at LANL, PNL, Sandia, and companies such as Shaw Environmental Group and BIOSAFE. We will also be examining alternative and competitive sensor and diagnostic units besides the In-Check platform including technology from Intel Corporation and Ingelhardt Institute (supported by DOE and PNL programs). The motivation for our emphasis upon assessing multiple programs including those that have not been explicitly targeting the natural environment and wildlife factors is that we believe there are two principal gaps that need to be addressed for an EBD program to be effective in a comprehensive way – pattern discovery and knowledge dissemination. Our prior work in these two topics, addressing similar gaps within military coordination and planning and within intelligence information sharing, provide us with the actual tools, human/technical resources, and experience to tackle these gaps for EBP planning and prototype architectures. We will make particular use of Verona, an intelligent knowledge management notebook tool, Command Post of the Future, an agent-enabled system in use for tactical coordination among military units in Iraq and in disaster regions, and our current work on Crisis Management and Disaster Recovery System (CMDRS) Our activity will not (during phase 1) be

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IDHS EBD

directed at technology or tool development but to building a plan and schedule for how to integrate and assimilate different resources from CDC, DHS, NIAID, and DoD. Figure 1 illustrates results from earlier studies on the prediction of contamination progression in an urban environment based upon environmental monitoring (in this case of radiation dosimetry collected from mobile sensor units). Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the conversion path we have already employed with Verona, a type of tool that we envision to be critical for field workers assessing observations and validating sensor readings and making determinations for containment measures or other circumventions.

Figure 1 – Localization and Progression of Contamination Events

Figure 2 – Rapid Transition of Verona Technologies for Incident Assessment and Response

C. Past Experience (Why GITI?) A successful wide-area multi-sensor, multi-protocol system requires integrated command and control design plus knowledge discovery and situational awareness concepts in order to best utilize the benefits of sensors and diagnostics such as those offered by PCR microfluids (e.g., In-Check). Global InfoTek has this experience and has been pre-eminent for providing successful,

eployable solutions – architecture, components, evaluation, testing, training and installation. G deliver a comprehensive design and CONOPS for a versatile emergency warning and response

dITI possesses the specific expertise – technical, logistic, operational, and cultural – necessary to

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IDHS EBD

network. GITI also brings to the table several potentially applicable technologies developed and

for a REDBIONET prototype and hands-on demonstration

expansion in staged progressions

pat es. He has been employed in ta, ST Microelectronics, Intel, hnologies, having received his

Within of CBRN emergencies, both terrorist and biological and nuclear attacks, and early

p, l Laboratory and has led a coordination of

lic health use with target projects in the San

tested for past and current DoD and intelligence community programs. Furthermore, as a provider of design, integration, evaluation and testing capabilities in multiple scientific disciplines, GITI is expressly capable of leading the planning efforts that necessarily involve specialists and technologies within biosensing, bioinformatics, clinical diagnostics, and emergency clinical response.

D. Deliverables • High-level architecture of REDBIONET service and communication components

• Detailed evaluation of bio-informatic analysis models and protocols for interpretation of disparate and distributed sensor readings and statistical reports

• HCI design of operator interface components and applications

• Preliminary requirements

• Plan for regional

E. Personnel Data Dr. Martin Dudziak, PhD has conducted research in complex nonlinear systems including

tern recognition and probabilistic reasoning for over two decadscientific and engineering management for Battelle, Martin MarietMedical College of Virginia, Silicon Dominion and TETRAD Tecdoctorate in theoretical and computational physics from Union Institute and University. the past 6 years Martin has focused upon the modelingnatural in origin, counterterrorism with a focus upon warning networks.

Mr. Joe Ordia: Before joining GITI, Mr. Ordia served as the lead engineer for the Army’s Command Post of the Future CoMotion software from 2001-2003. Most recently, Mr. Ordia served as GITI’s program manager for the CPOF Pattern Discovery program. In this capacity, Mr. Ordia led a team of machine learning experts in developing solutions to automate the flow of intelligence information between operators in the Army’s CPOF environment. Mr. Ordia did his undergraduate studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

Special Advisory Consultants to the Project include:

Dr. Dorothy Small, PhD is a senior scientist with Shaw Environmental Group and Ms. Small has 20 years experience in a broad array of onsite specific environmental requirements, biohazard emergency response, laboratory analysis, sampling procedures, bioremediation, and construction. She was manager of sampling and remediation for the US Post Office Anthrax Cleanup in both Trenton, NJ and Washington, DC.

Dr. Kristin Omberg, PhD is a Group Leader for the Systems Engineering & Integration GrouDecision Applications Division, Los Alamos Nationamilitary methods and measures for application to pubDiego metropolitan community. She has a background in biosensor integration and the use of mobile wireless sensor networks in conjunction with alert systems.

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