Packages of red blood cell units sit inside a walk-in refrigerator in the Blood Transshipment Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, Jan. 13, 2016.

The Defense Department's deep research and development arm is exploring ways to hack U.S. service members' blood so they can fight harder and longer in what could represent a major step toward engineering troops with seemingly superhuman capabilities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Red Blood Cell-Factory program, unveiled[1] in December, is developing a medical device that could feed "biologically active components" into U.S. troops' red blood cells. Those doses, when triggered, could help them overcome injury or illness on the battlefield.

That could help troops operate in the harshest environments, from extreme cold to disease-ridden jungles to even subterranean environments, according to RBC-Factory program manager Dr. Chris Bettinger.

"This is all about reimagining how we can protect service members," Bettinger tells Military.com. "We want to answer the question: To what extent can we endow red blood cells with compounds in a stable way, and have those red blood cells serve as a durable, circulating project to contain and release that compound?"

As Bettinger explains it, red blood cells are an ideal delivery vehicle for biological compounds like peptides and proteins because they can circulate reliably in the human bloodstream for months. In practical terms, DARPA envisions using a pre-deployment[2] regimen to customize some of a service member's red blood cells to deal with threats specific to where they're headed, not unlike the military health system's area of operations-specific vaccination recommendations[3].

"We could empower them with new compounds to energize and animate them to do new things," Bettinger says.

Biological interventions for military personnel have been a fixture of modern warfare for well over a century since cocaine hit the front lines[4] of World War I. Today, some American service members are still exposed to performance-enhancing drugs, whether they're authorized "go" and "no-go" pills for military aviators[5] or illicit steroids[6] for special operations[7] forces. In recent years, the Defense Department has even explored technological augmentation, from powered exoskeletons[8] to brain implants[9], to potentially enhance troop performance. A 2019 Army[10] report[11] looking at the future of the "cyborg soldier" suggested that the "introduction of augmented human beings into the general population, DoD active-duty personnel, and near-peer competitors will accelerate in the years following 2050."

But with the rise of gene editing and other advancements in medical technology, the U.S. military may now be in the middle of a bioengineering arms race[12] with those near-peer competitors, Russia[13] and China[14], in pursuit of physiological enhancements that might give troops an edge on a chaotic battlefield.

The RBC-Factory program is one of several recent initiatives explicitly focused on building biological resilience. Established[15] in 2018, the agency's PReemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements (PREPARE) program is tasked with developing a gene editing system to allow the on-demand activation of the body's innate physiological defenses. In 2023, the agency announced[16] its Synthetic Hemo-technologIEs that Locate & Disinfect (SHIELD) program to develop preventative treatments to protect troops against the fungal and bacterial pathogens that can cause bloodstream infections following trauma like a gunshot wound or blast exposure.

The general conceit of the the RBC-Factory program -- introducing a specially engineered substance into an average service member's body to boost their performance on the battlefield -- may sound similar to the process that transformed fictional Army recruit Steve Rogers into the super-soldier Captain America (or, well, the real world example of juicing[17].) But Bettinger's description of the RBC-Factory's potential applications is more reminiscent of a different fictional character, Wolverine from the mutant X-Men: The compounds delivered through modified red blood cells could help troops heal faster and better resist disease rather than, say, run a two-minute mile[18] or do backflips off of hostile aircraft[19].

"Imagine a world where service members have red blood cells accessorized with a compound that prevents bleeding," Bettinger says. "What happens after trauma is that you have a rupturing of red blood cells in the body's vasculature. But in this scenario, you have someone prophylactically protected against bleeding, so if they do sustain a trauma, the red blood cells dump out the compound that promotes coagulation and prevents bleeding."

Bettinger points to malaria, a scourge to American service members deployed overseas to tropical environs, as another example of a potential problem the RBC-Factory program can combat. By infusing troops with red blood cells containing an antimalarial peptide, the system could help prevent an infected service member from ever feeling sick.

"In early stages of malarial infection, the red blood cells deliver a medical countermeasure on demand to restore baseline function," he says.

For now, Bettinger is quick to emphasize that the project is focused on troop protection and restoration rather than outright physiological enhancement, noting that DARPA is intentionally eschewing genetic manipulation as it looks at potential solutions.

"We're not talking about augmenting anything," he says. "It's about force protection."

A blood-borne compound delivery system could also have ramifications beyond just preventative treatments, offering a source of physiological protection in tactical scenarios where traditional medical interventions may not be available.

"You can't stockpile enough of the vaccine or antivirus capability to protect the population against that in the future," as then-DARPA director Steven H. Walker put it[20] in 2019. "But that is why you want to be able to actually have your body be the antibody factory, if possible."

As with many early-stage DARPA efforts, the RBC-Factory program is currently focused on "fundamental research" designed to simply map the contours of what's possible in terms of introducing blood-borne compounds into a service member's body. At the moment, the two-year program is in the source selection phase, with officials reviewing proposals and identifying potential performers to deliver prototypes for assessment.

Just as with discussions of performance-enhancing drugs[21] and other biological interventions[22], the program comes with a slew of thorny ethical and legal challenges[23] for Bettinger and his team to unpack. Do service members have to consent to any type of treatment, or must they simply acquiesce to orders? Can they refuse such treatments on ethical grounds? What are the long-term health effects, and how can service members make an informed decision regarding their treatment if those effects are still unknown? And if adverse effects emerge years later, who bears responsibility for a service member's care and compensation?

DARPA says it's laser-focused on exploring the ethical, legal and social ramifications of red blood cell modifications before proceeding too far down a research path.

"We try to think deeply about the impact of our research," Bettinger says before inadvertently paraphrasing "Jurassic Park"[24]: "We step back, take a deep breath, and try not to get so obsessed with whether we can do something, but if we should do something."

© Copyright 2025 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[25].

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The Army[1] is pulling some household goods shipments belonging to its personnel out of the military's new privatized system that manages moves due to "contract performance issues," according to the service and the military command overseeing the system.

A memo from the Army Personal Property Lead Element, dated Feb. 28, told transportation offices to "pull back" some Army shipments from the new system, which has been in the works for years and was meant to solve widespread dissatisfaction among military families over permanent change-of-station[2] moves.

As of February, at least 1,000 of the 8,900 shipments initiated under the single company contracted to oversee all Department of Defense moves, HomeSafe Alliance, had experienced problems, according to figures released by U.S. Transportation Command and the company.

Read Next: Pentagon Caps Civilians' Government Charge Cards at $1, Limits Travel as Part of Trump Cuts[3]

In recent months, service members and transportation offices have begun requesting and managing moves through the department's new MilMove app and the corresponding HomeSafe Connect app.

HomeSafe carried out only localized "test moves" during the 2024 peak moving season and began moving military households between U.S. bases in the fall, adding new bases incrementally.

Military families have reported delays and cancellations[4] of the privately managed household goods shipments, including instances of crews never showing up to pack their belongings, despite receiving confirmation messages, as well as waiting indefinitely to receive their items at their new home, Military.com reported in January.

The PCS[5] moves are a staple of life for troops, families and civilian defense workers. The regular moves are often a long, drawn-out and stressful process -- even without hiccups and disruptions in the pickup, shipment and delivery of all their household belongings.

Transportation Command, which oversees the HomeSafe contract, and the military services have since "noted contract performance issues," the command told Military.com in a statement in reference to the Army's memo.

The command added that the Army memo "outlines additional control measures to mitigate further impacts[6] to service members and their families in the near term."

As of late January, Transportation Command estimated that about 1,000 shipments had been affected by problems such as communication, missed pickups and missed deliveries, but couldn't share more specific performance statistics, citing "the nature of the contract."

HomeSafe announced Feb. 19 that it had completed 1,400 shipments. The DoD provides approximately 400,000 household goods moves[7] each year to service members and their families, amounting to about 15% of all U.S. moves and making the military the industry's largest customer. Most military moves take place in late spring or summer.

The Army's memo said the change affected only its personnel and that the other services had "not made additional determinations on shipment management."

The memo requires transportation offices to book Army moves in the legacy Defense Personal Property System -- the system set to be replaced by the privatized contract -- if the moves don't give HomeSafe at least 21 days of lead time.

The Army offices will also re-book in that old system any moves within the 21-day window that don't already have movers assigned by HomeSafe.

In a statement to Military.com, HomeSafe said it requested a lead time of at least 21 days "in this program's early and developmental stages ... to provide us enough time to book high-quality movers on necessary dates."

The statement said HomeSafe apologized "to every family affected by capacity-related delays, and we are dedicated to providing timely service going forward. HomeSafe is taking all the lessons learned and continually improving our systems and processes, including enhancing our customer care operations, updating our technology platform, reshaping our training program for service providers and hiring additional employees."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent a letter[8] Feb. 26 to Gen. Randall Reed, head of Transportation Command, requesting a briefing on the issues including HomeSafe Alliance's capacity to provide moves, citing reports by his constituents and in the press of issues with moves.

Related: Military Families Report No-Shows, Delays Amid Rollout of New Household Goods Shipment System[9]

© Copyright 2025 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[10].

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