The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296) states that DHS S&T will "support basic and applied homeland security research to promote revolutionary changes in technologies; advance the development, testing and evaluation, and deployment of critical homeland security technologies; and accelerate the prototyping and deployment of technologies that would address homeland security vulnerabilities." Pursuant to this mission, the Chemical and Biological Defense Division (CBD) seeks technologies to prevent and defend against a chemical and biological attack. Within the CBD is the Threat Characterization and Attribution (TCA) Branch, which has the mission to conduct threat and risk assessments on both traditional and advanced agents; characterize biological threats, provide scientific support to the biodefense, chemical defense and intelligence communities. The Biological Threat Characterization Program (BTCP) supports the TCA Branch within CBD of DHS S&T. The BTCP has been established to characterize biological threats to support the four pillars of biodefense as outlined in HSPD-10: Threat Awareness, Prevention and Protection, Surveillance and Detection, and Response and Recovery. The Biological Threat characterization's goal is to improve the understanding of the impact of a biological attack on the country in order to enhance national preparedness. Biological threat information requirements are identified and prioritized from internal DHS sources and other Federal government partners. This BAA seeks to conducts studies and laboratory experimentation to address information requirements in biological threat characterization. The measures of success are determined by the positive influence that the deliverables have on biological agent threat awareness, prevention of and protection from a biological agent incident, surveillance and detection during a biological incident, and response and recovery from a biological incident.