Episode 18: The Disease Slayer

    In this episode of Voices from DARPA, COL Matthew Hepburn, a program manager since 2013 with the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), explains how his urgent ambition to develop ways and means of disarming current and emerging infectious and pandemic diseases—think here of Ebola, influenza, and Chikungunya—has led to a portfolio of go-for-the-gold programs that ultimately could reduce human suffering by an immeasurable degree. A biomedical engineer, physician, and global disease fighter by training and experience, Matt has known since he was a child that taking care of people was going to be his mission and he says DARPA is a place where he might be able to carry out that childhood dream to an extreme that would not be possible elsewhere.  

Om Podcasten

DARPA’s podcast series, "Voices from DARPA," offers a revealing and informative window on the minds of the Agency's program managers. In each episode, a program manager from one of DARPA’s six technical offices—Biological Technologies, Defense Sciences, Information Innovation, Microsystems Technology, Strategic Technology, and Tactical Technology—will discuss in informal and personal terms why they are at DARPA and what they are up to. The goal of "Voices from DARPA" is to share with listeners some of the institutional know-how, vision, process, and history that together make the “secret sauce” DARPA has been adding to the Nation’s innovation ecosystem for nearly 60 years. On another level, we at DARPA just wanted to share the pleasure we all have every day—in the elevator, in the halls, in our meeting rooms—as we learn from each other and swap ideas and strive to change what’s possible.