Army science team beefs up U.S. Forces Korea's ability to detect threats

A U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) team recently completed four months of work to increase the lab-analysis capabilities of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), which will now be able to better test for suspected biological warfare agents.

“We did a complete makeover of two existing Air Force labs and set up an Army lab from scratch,” Brady Redmond, laboratory project lead, said. “We upgraded the Air Force labs’ analytical technology and equipment, and we set up filters to protect the laboratory buildings from chemical biological threats. We placed all new equipment in the Army laboratory, and we got all three laboratories to start talking to each other, sharing supplies and sharing lessons learned.”

The laboratory project is part of the larger Joint USFK Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition (JUPITR) Advanced Technology Demonstration project. The labs, located at Osan Air Base and Kunsan Air Base, on the eastern coast of South Korea, and Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul, were formerly able to process just two to three samples per day. The laboratory upgrades have increased that capacity to dozens per day, and the results are available in just 24 hours.

Funding for the JUPITR Advanced Technology Demonstration project comes from the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical Biological Defense, as does strategic guidance, while the ECBC handles management and execution.