The focus of this project is the demonstration of a new concept for discriminating chemical and biological agents in the presence of a complex interfering background.  The objective is to identify the particular molecule with high sensitivity and selectivity by optimally enhancing the differences between one agent versus another through smart detectors.  The heart of our detection technology is the use of tailored, laser-driven coherent molecular dynamics.  The research will introduce a new laboratory procedure to accomplish agent discrimination by drawing together ultrafast optical pulse shaping techniques with both optical and mass spectrometric probes, all slaved together by closed-loop learning algorithms.  The research capitalizes on the special ability to perform many thousands of such experiments in a short period of time.