The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting proposal abstracts for a three-phase program that seeks to develop a handheld sensor prototype designed to assess warfighter readiness by evaluating a soldier’s physiological states based on molecular biomarkers.

DARPA said Wednesday the tool developed under the four-year Smart Non-invasive Assays of Physiology program would be configured to the Department of Defense’s various needs for training, readiness assessment and mission planning.

“Portable, multi-plexed, multi-omic measurement technologies have the potential to enable ongoing monitoring of health and disease outside of traditional care delivery settings,” said Gopal Sarma, SNAP program manager at DARPA.

“While SNAP is focused on DoD applications in warfighter readiness, our plan is that the technologies generated will have a transformative impact on civilian medicine, public health, and national security,” Sarma added.

The first phase of the SNAP program will focus on the development of molecular sensors and related models used for predicting performance in a physical task and proof-of-concept capabilities for embedded sensing and readout.

The second phase will deal with building molecular sensors and associated models to predict performance in a cognitive task, while the third phase will focus on refining a fully integrated tool to predict performance in both physical and cognitive tasks.

“SNAP devices will provide an objective and reliable source of actionable information about a warfighter’s physiological readiness state, thus facilitating mission-critical risk mitigation,” Sarma said.

DARPA will hold a Proposers’ Day on July 21 and accept proposal abstracts through Aug. 11.

Full proposals are due Sept. 15.

The Office of Management and Budget has provided quarterly updates on the President’s Management Agenda and announced progress on three priority goals, which are strengthening the federal workforce, improving federal service delivery and customer experience and managing the business of government.

The team for managing the business of government priority outlines two strategies and these are promoting lasting improvements in the federal acquisition system and building capacity in federal financial management, according to a Performance.gov blog post published Friday.

For the first strategy, the team listed three goals: build a diverse and resilient federal marketplace; ensure interoperability and sharing of acquisition tools and data; and develop an inspired, engaged acquisition workforce.

Goals under the second strategy are strengthening the governance of areas of federal financial assistance common across agencies to advance the government’s ability to implement the president’s vision and statutory requirements through federal programs and building a robust financial assistance community that identifies and strengthens the core competencies of grants managers.

The business of government priority area leaders are Don Graves, deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce; Andrea Palm, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; and John Tien, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said there has been progress in the past two weeks with a bill that would provide $52 billion worth of subsidies and incentives to support and boost domestic chip production to address the shortage of semiconductors, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Raimondo said the White House and lawmakers are “closing down issues and finding compromise” with the proposed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which would appropriate funds to advance research and development efforts and build new technologies to maintain the country’s competitive edge over China.

“Yes, it will happen — it’s taking much too long,” Raimondo said of the legislation on Bloomberg Television Monday.

“It isn’t right to play politics with national security, that’s what I think is happening,” she added.