1. 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. Global InfoTek Inc.
1920 Association Drive 1920 Association Drive
Suite 200 Suite 200
Reston, VA 20191 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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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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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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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,
deployable solutions – architecture, components, evaluation, testing, training and installation.
GITI possesses the specific expertise – technical, logistic, operational, and cultural – necessary to
deliver a comprehensive design and CONOPS for a versatile emergency warning and response
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EBD
network. GITI also brings to the table several potentially applicable technologies developed and
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 for a REDBIONET prototype and hands-on demonstration
• Plan for regional expansion in staged progressions
E. Personnel Data
Dr. Martin Dudziak, PhD has conducted research in complex nonlinear systems including
pattern recognition and probabilistic reasoning for over two decades. He has been employed in
scientific and engineering management for Battelle, Martin Marietta, ST Microelectronics, Intel,
Medical College of Virginia, Silicon Dominion and TETRAD Technologies, having received his
doctorate in theoretical and computational physics from Union Institute and University. Within
the past 6 years Martin has focused upon the modeling of CBRN emergencies, both terrorist and
natural in origin, counterterrorism with a focus upon biological and nuclear attacks, and early
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 Group,
Decision Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory and has led a coordination of
military methods and measures for application to public health use with target projects in the San
Diego 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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