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Biotechnology
his issue of The Edge is devoted to MITRE's burgeoning biotechnology effort. Biotechnology is a critical technology that will be a major economic driver in the next decade. It holds out promise for major medical and health breakthroughs, but at the same time it has the potential for devastating destruction in the forms of deliberate or naturally occurring outbreaks of disease, pollution, and bio-contamination. MITRE's role is to provide our sponsors with comprehensive expertise and technological solutions for emerging biological threats, as well as to harvest advances made in the life sciences to drive innovative solutions in other fields. To fulfill this mission, the corporation is leveraging its traditional strengths in systems engineering, information technology, sensors, security, and basic computer science. We are combining these skills with expertise in computational biology, bioinformatics, epidemiological models, neuroscience, medicine, and public health to tackle critical problems, including protecting the nation from biological threats. We have made significant progress during the past few years in establishing a biotechnology technical area at MITRE that focuses on some of our sponsors' most challenging issues. Our efforts include a range of activities, from organizing our biotechnology resources and projects to take advantage of expertise across the corporation to planning a new laboratory that will support experiments in bio- and nano-technology. We have also established partnerships with other organizations to share their expertise and resources. These include the International Consortium for Brain Mapping (under the National Institutes of Health), Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and Harvard University Medical School. The articles in this issue highlight the range of projects we are working on—from data mining techniques for brain mapping to detection tools for pathogens in water supplies. It's important to note that the science behind these projects can be used to solve a variety of problems that are not necessarily biological—for example, understanding human performance, searching through large databases, or improving the organizational structure of a government agency. |
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| For more information, please contact guest editors Lynette Hirschman or Jordan Feidler using the employee directory. Page last updated: May 24, 2005 | Top of page |
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