Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) – Profiles

The Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) is the largest biomedical research facility in the U.S. Navy conducting health and medical research, development, testing, and evaluations. Focus areas include: infectious diseases, biological warfare defense, directed energy bioeffects, combat casualty care, environmental health, bone marrow transplantation, aerospace and undersea medicine, medical modeling, simulation and mission support, warfighter performance, epidemiology and behavioral science.

NMRC’s Infectious Diseases Directorate is comprised of departments for Malaria Research, Enteric Diseases, and Viral and Rickettsial Diseases. Studies include immune response to pathogens, development of candidate vaccines, clinical trials support and epidemiologic studies.

The Biological Defense Research Directorate (BDRD) within NMRC conducts applied research on diagnostic assays for the detection of biological agents in clinical and environmental samples, rapid genomics sequencing, and vaccine and therapeutics development. The directorate is comprised of six departments: genomics/bioinformatics, molecular diagnostics, immunodiagnostics, clinical research, operations and international field microbiology.

As part of the 2005 BRAC Law, BDRD relocated the research and reagent production activities to Ft Detrick, Maryland in October 2011. Annually, BDRD produces over $50M worth of reagents for the DoD Critical Reagents Program and other U.S. Federal Agencies. The molecular diagnostic laboratory provides certified reference materials ensuring confidence in fielded biowarfare detection assays, Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) studies and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) efforts throughout DoD and Federal Agencies.

The immunodiagnostic department is the only laboratory within DoD capable of producing hand-held assays to detect biological agents from environmental samples.

BDRD is responsible for outfitting the Navy and Marine Corps with bioweapons defense field testing capabilities and managing the proficiency testing program for the fielded Joint Biological Agent and Identification and Detection System (JBAIDS) platform.