With New Lab, MITRE Expands Physical Experimentation in Life Sciences

Jordan Feidler, John Dileo, and Elaine Mullen

s you can see from the articles in this issue, MITRE is developing broad expertise in the area of biotechnology. To do so, the corporation has leveraged its strong background in the computational sciences to address the inherent informatics challenges. To complement these core strengths, however, we are also making strategic investments in laboratories to ensure that staff members have access to state-of-the-art experimental facilities. These investments allow us to provide comprehensivetechnical capabilities in the life sciences and make more progress in solving our sponsors' tough challenges.

Throughout the corporation, representing a wide variety of technologies, from sensors to information security. The facilities help staff turn theories into experiments, demonstrations, and often prototypes, which are adopted by government and industry. The labs also provide valuable training ground for our scientists and engineers and contribute to our interdisciplinary culture.

To date, our biotech researchers have been using the labs of other organizations to evaluate and test proposed solutions. Soon they'll have a lab of their own. In light of our growing research efforts in life sciences, we are now constructing a new cell and molecular biology laboratory on our McLean, Virginia, campus. The 2,700-square-foot lab, due to open in 2006, will provide space to both biotechnology and nanotechnology researchers.

Lab Partnerships

MITRE's current research projects already require the use of labs for physical experimentation, and we have been borrowing lab space for our work. Researchers working on the Computational Biology and Biotechnology research project (described on page 3) have developed a collaborative relationship with Dr. Marti Jett of the Department of Molecular Pathology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and have the use of WRAIR lab facilities. Just a short drive from MITRE's McLean campus, the WRAIR collaboration has allowed MITRE technical staff access to a state-of-the-art molecular and cell biology laboratory.

Although the initial collaboration with WRAIR began with the Computational Biology project, it has now been expanded to include experiments being conducted in support of other projects, such as the Rapid Diagnosis of Exposure to Biological and Chemical Warfare Agents research project (described in Designing Defenses Against Biological and Chemical Attacks). Our staff members are designing and conducting DNA microarray experiments that fill in or augment legacy data by collecting control and treatment data at key time-points. Collecting this additional data results in greater accuracy and statistical power than would have been possible without it.

In another instance, our research team working on pathogen capture (described in Exploiting Nature's Molecular Mechanisms to Combat Bioweapons) is collaborating with biochemists and microbiologists in laboratory facilities at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. This lab allows the team to:

• Prepare sterile "designer films" that contain a known quantity of a specific glycoprotein
• Visualize, via advanced microscopy, the capture of bacteria on the films
• Quantify the efficiency of pathogen capture via serial dilutions and cell culture.

Our new lab is not meant to answer the needs of all our biotechnology researchers. That, of course, would require several different kinds of facilities. We will continue to work in partnership with WRAIR, Johns Hopkins, and other government research labs and university labs. This is a critical piece of MITRE's overall strategy. By continuing these relationships and developing others like them, we can leverage the capabilities these facilities provide and encourage collaboration.

Our new lab will include equipment to support nucleotide and protein analysis. Both deoxyribo-nucleic-acid (DNA) and ribonucleic-acid (RNA) are composed of basic building blocks called nucleotides. These fundamental molecular elements are at the heart of a living cell's ability to create, store, and transcribe genetic information. Thus, the experimental measurement and manipulation of nucleotide sequences is the foundation of modern molecular biology. The MITRE lab is being equipped for isolating, sequencing, and quantifying nucleotide sequences using a number of experimental techniques.

Olivia Peters, John Dileo, and Jordan Feidler conduct experiments at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Department of Pathology lab. MITRE staff will be able to conduct some of this molecular and cell biology work in its own lab next year, after the new lab is built to support our research in biotechnology and nanotechnology.

The lab will also be used for "proteomics," the study of proteins and their functions. DNA and RNA sequences within cells specify the type and amount of proteins to be produced at any given time. Proteins are the end-products of the stored genetic information and are the effectors within the cell. The lab will allow us to use a variety of techniques, from immunohistochemistry to cell fractionation. With our new facilities, we'll be capable of isolating proteins, characterizing their activation states, and quantifying concentration profiles.

Safety and Security

This lab space is being designed and outfitted with the goal of supporting a broad portfolio of projects within a flexible biotechnology core facility. To ensure that we are meeting all federal, state, and local standards, we have formed an advisory committee of life scientists from within the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and academic institutions to provide guidance and oversight on all experimental protocols to be conducted in the lab.

MITRE feels that the investment in this lab is warranted based on the many ways we have found to apply biotechnology to specific problems being faced by our government sponsors. The lab will support prototype design and technology demonstrations and will serve as a vehicle for MITRE staff to maintain skills and training on the latest experimental capabilities, with a particular emphasis on the cross-training of technical staff coming from the computational sciences.

For more information, please contact Jordan Feidler, John Dileo, or Elaine Mullen using the employee directory.

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