DHS S&T announces licensing of Socrates data analysis tool

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced on March 22 the seventh technology commercialization through S&T’s Transition to Practice (TTP) Program since the start of the current fiscal year.

The data-analysis tool Socrates, initially developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, was licensed by BullFrog AI, Inc., an investor-backed artificial intelligence company that is working closely with the biopharmaceutical industry to find the link between therapies and patients. The agreement permits BullFrog AI exclusive use of the tool in the field of analytical services for biopharmaceutical therapeutic applications.

“This commercialization shows conclusively that the ‘Transition to Practice’ Program is living up to its name and fulfilling its mission by consistently transitioning innovative technology to the marketplace where it can make the most impact,” said Douglas Maughan, S&T’s Cyber Security Division director.

Socrates was selected for TTP’s 2016 cohort. It is a flexible, easy-to-use graph analytics tool designed to discover patterns and relationships in largescale and complex datasets. Such datasets can be found in social, financial, energy and biological domains in addition to applications in cybersecurity. Socrates has successfully been used to discover previously unknown patterns in real-world big datasets.

“This transition is all the more remarkable when considering the exciting new applications that are being made possible. Socrates had already been utilized in government, including within DHS components, to address multiple data-analysis needs, and its use in biotech promises to be equally successful,” said Nadia Carlsten, TTP program manager. “Our process with TTP emphasizes exploring different models to address different market needs and this has been a key factor in our successful commercialization track record.”

The TTP program complements the S&T process of funding projects through the full research-and-development (R&D) lifecycle and into the commercial marketplace. Each fiscal year, the TTP program identifies the most promising technologies developed at federal laboratories, federally funded research and development centers, and universities for the transition-to-market program. Selected technologies take part in a structured transition process designed to increase maturity and market readiness and are introduced at TTP-hosted “Demo Day” events to investors, developers and integrators who can turn them into commercially viable products.

Source: DHS