Page 48 - Biotech Career Guide

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careers: PROTECTING OUR TROOPS
DETECT AND PROTECT:
Identifying and neutralizing new
kinds of threats to personnel and
military assets.
Imagine putting plants, animals on
land and underwater, and even in-
sects to work as far-flung, widely
distributed sensors making up vast,
interconnected, self-perpetuating sur-
veillance networks. These biological
“assets” would monitor the environ-
ment for chemical and biological
weapons, novel viruses and harmful
bacteria, or threats in the ocean rang-
ing from small, unmanned drones to
nuclear submarines. Examples of pro-
grams doing this work are: Advanced
Tech Solutions
for Our Troops
If you’d like to contribute to our country’s defense,
take a look at these amazingly innovative initiatives.
“ A strength of U.S. national
security is the willingness
to look over the horizon
and plan for what the future will
bring. There is an inflection point
now with the coming biotechnology
revolution. It will disrupt and trans-
form all facets of life.” So says Peter
Emanuel, one of the Army’s leading
biotechnology visionaries, under-
scoring how advantages in technol-
ogy can amplify a country’s military
capabilities. America has long led
the world in innovative defense tech-
nologies. But our historical leader-
ship in this area does not guarantee
the same supremacy in the future.
In the fall of 2022, the White
House identified biotechnology as
a “critical technology area” for the
country. As a result — and as much
as any of the other career paths you
have read about — biotechnology in
the service of national defense will
be offering only more opportunities
to service-minded, smart people in-
terested in protecting the country
through science and technology.
The incredible advances enabled
by biotechnology make projects un-
der way at the Department of Defense
seem like glimpses into the far future.
But these are real-world efforts, with
prospects for success that would rev-
olutionize our military capabilities.
U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY STAFF SGT. WILLIAM RIO ROSADO