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You will be surprised to know that most of the innovations deployed to handle the coronavirus were once mysterious Pentagon-funded projects to defend soldiers from contagious diseases and biological weapons. The life-saving vaccine developed in a record time was a debt to these programs. The retired Colonel Matt Hepburn is an army infectious disease physician. He spent years with the secretive defense advanced research projects agency or DARPA and working on technology he hopes will ensure COVID-19 is the last pandemic. Matt Hepburn said, “If we wanna say we can never let this happen again, we’re gonna have to go even faster next time. Eight years ago”. Hepburn was recruited by DARPA. The agency was created at least 60 years ago after President Eisenhower was caught off guard when Russia launched the first satellite “Sputnik” into orbit.

Matt Hepburn added, “The DARPA director was very clear. Our mission is to take pandemics off the table. Of course, and that was the beauty of the DARPA model. We challenge the research community to come up with solutions that may sound like science fiction. And we’re very willing to take chances with high-risk investments that may not work. But if they do, we can completely transform the landscape. What we don’t do, we don’t say. Here is our problem. Here’s your blank check. Come back to us in three to five years, we’ll see how you do. Active program management is a sensor. That tiny green thing in there, you put it underneath your skin and what that tells you is that there are chemical reactions going on inside the body and that signal means you are going to have symptoms tomorrow”.

Dr. Matt Hepburn also said, “Yeah. It’s like a check engine light. Sailors would get the signal, then self-administer a blood draw and test themselves on site. We can have that information in three to five minutes. As you truncate that time, as you diagnose and treat, what you do is you stop the infection in its tracks. This is a filter that you can put on a dialysis machine. He was asked that you pass someone’s blood through this? Matt Hepburn replied and said, “It takes the virus out, and puts the blood back in”. It is noteworthy that the coronavirus has since infected more than 250,000 Defense Department personnel and their dependents around the world. The Pentagon has been jumpstarting programs that might save lives. The DARPA isn’t the only Pentagon agency on the frontlines.