[HN Gopher] DARPA Seeks to Shield Blood from Fungal and Bacteria...
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DARPA Seeks to Shield Blood from Fungal and Bacterial Pathogens
Author : JPLeRouzic
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-07-07 19:03 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.darpa.mil)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.darpa.mil)
| neodypsis wrote:
| Hopefully this stimulates further research into cocodriles'
| blood. They already have something similar to what DARPA is
| looking for, if I recall correctly.
| AftHurrahWinch wrote:
| There's the theory that a significant reason why mammals
| superseded reptiles after the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass-
| extinction event is because the cooler, darker planet prevented
| reptiles from sunning themselves to clear fungal infections. One
| of the major reasons cold-blooded animals bask on warm rocks in
| the sun is to artificially induce a 'fever' to raise their body
| temperature high enough to break down proteins in fungal
| infections. Warm-blooded mammals had the ability to do that
| naturally, even during the very long winter after the K-T event.
| [0]
|
| Yet, increasing global temperatures have been naturally selecting
| fungi which can survive at higher temperatures... and the average
| human body temperature has been decreasing in the developed world
| [1].
|
| [0]:
| https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...
|
| [1]: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/01/human-body-
| te...
| cdiamand wrote:
| Has anyone here ever done any work at DARPA, and if so how was
| the experience?
|
| Also, I'm assuming you need some kind of background related to
| the projects you apply to work on right?
| zzz95 wrote:
| Assuming that you mean working on cool research. You can
| interview and come in as a DARPA Program manager where you need
| to bring in a grand vision and would be in charge of
| revolutionizing a field(s). But what is it that you would do
| day to day? A DARPA PM doesn't do actual research but instead
| has access to the network of the best minds in research and
| uses them to shape a multi-million 5 yr 'program' and arrange
| for funding and transition paths to DoD and private industry. A
| PM's tenure is 5 yrs, so most PMs come in with a vision, start
| 2-5 programs, inherit other programs and then transition out.
|
| You can always look at the latest programs -
| https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities
|
| The people doing the actual research are independent research
| labs, universities, and small business. These are a combination
| of scientists and engineers publishing papers and taking the
| technology from papers to the field.
| AustinDev wrote:
| I know a fair amount about this and will happily answer
| additional questions. There are two main ways to work for
| DARPA. Bid on contracts when they are opened up for public bid.
| The other way is to work at DARPA to do this you need an
| incredibly unique idea that solves a particular office
| director's mandate for their tenure then you apply as a program
| manager. Most program managers are academics with unique ideas
| to solve the needs of that particular office head. You can only
| work as a program manager for a certain amount of time, I
| believe two years, before you have to rotate out.
|
| If you work as a contractor on a DARPA program, you generally
| get to keep all IP rights. I've used these programs to fund
| companies before.
| PNewling wrote:
| Like most government agencies I assume most of the work is done
| by some form of defence contractor.
|
| That being said, I'd like to hear stories from anyone who has
| worked there as well.
| lolsowrong wrote:
| Yes. Most of the work is not done in the DARPA building.
| Generally federal contractor sites. The daily work in the
| building is phone calls, reviewing papers, email, building
| powerpoint slides, and trying to come up with the next
| program. In my time, most PMs managed between 3 and 5
| programs, some of their own creation, and some inherited from
| outgoing PMs (term limit + federal contracting timelines
| means generally the originating PM is not around to see a
| program through to its conclusion)
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I've never worked at DARPA, but yeah, they are a funding
| agency mostly so there's director-types who set research
| directions and create grant opportunities, admin-types who
| push money around and track status, and most the work is done
| by those who submit successful proposals. I've had a couple
| smallish tasks for DARPA while I was at a gov lab.
|
| They have a nice model. The program managers (those who set
| research directions) are fixed-term IIRC, so they have very
| little incentive to politic, and instead can focus on seeing
| their pet program through to completion in the given time /
| funding.
|
| One of their main "jobs" (aside from above), is to be an
| advocate for emerging tech among the military and civilian
| industrial partners to make sure it actually "becomes
| something".
|
| To work at DARPA in this capacity usually requires a _lot_ of
| successful R &D program management experience and some sense
| of grand vision. To work in a lesser, administrative
| capacity, including interacting with research partners,
| requires just a tad less, but on the average they've been
| exceptional, intelligent, and responsive partners for all the
| work we've done for them.
| lolsowrong wrote:
| Program Managers are fixed term - up to 3 2 year terms
| (though Director Tompkins generally doesn't like PMs to be
| around longer than 4 years - see section 1101 of the Strom
| Thurmond NDAA for more details about the hiring authority).
|
| I don't know about the admin vs director types split you're
| talking about (at least in the PM ranks). Office directors
| generally provided top cover and some very sweeping
| research directions, but as a PM it was your job to come up
| with research programs that were roughly compatible,
| convince the office director it was, and then manage the
| technical execution with the performers and doing dog and
| pony shows when the pentagon called.
| archgoon wrote:
| [dead]
| darkclouds wrote:
| > preventive treatments for warfighters who suffer trauma from
| gunshot or blast wounds, or burns
|
| Re the burns, thats why the muscles are catabolised quickly, the
| creatine in muscle becomes creatinine which has Gram + & -
| antibiotic properties.
|
| Taurine, is a form of sulfonic acid, and sulfonic acid are
| precursors to sulfonamides, which were the first anti bacterial
| drugs, developed by a German scientist, whose work ironically
| helped save the lives of Winston Churchill and Roosevelts son
| [1].
|
| Just two examples of many of the chemicals we can find in our
| diet which can have extremely useful properties for our health.
|
| https://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/sulfanilamide2/sulfanilamide...
| rudyfink wrote:
| Huh, I did not know they were related to sulfonamides like
| that. If you (or someone else) might like a book that goes into
| the history of sulfonamides, I'd recommend "The Demon Under The
| Microscope" by Hager (https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Under-
| Microscope-Battlefield-Ho...). It was an interesting read.
| arthurwu wrote:
| Seeing SHIELD in a government press release, my first thought was
| Nick Fury, but not a blood roomba :)
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