The Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA), has a requirement for BioElectronics to Sense and Treat (BEST).

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• The BioElectronics to Sense and Treat (BEST) program seeks to address this need by developing wearable, automated technologies that can predict and prevent a wound infection before it can occur, and to eliminate an infection if it has already taken hold. To achieve this vision, BEST performers will develop novel bioelectronic smart bandages comprised of wound infection sensor and treatment modules. The sensors will be high-resolution and provide real-time, continual monitoring of wounds based on, for example, microbial wound community and/or host signatures. Data from these sensors will be used to predict if a wound will fail to heal due to infection, diagnose the infection, and regulate administration of targeted treatments by closedloop control to prevent a predicted infection or to resolve an existing infection so that the wound heals. Given that infection initiates at the time of injury and can take hold before medivac under anti access/area denial conditions, to have the greatest impact these technologies need to be pushed forward for use on the battlefield. Even if medivac occurs immediately, without the ability to prevent infection, the downstream care required to treat the surge of wound infections resulting from a large-scale combat operation will overwhelm care capacity.