SOURCES SOUGHT
66 -- Sources Sought for Scientific Heat Stabilization Instrument
- Notice Date
- 12/2/2016
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 334516
— Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B130, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1410, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20899-1410
- Solicitation Number
- NIST-MML-17-SS3
- Archive Date
- 12/31/2016
- Point of Contact
- Grace H. Garrity, Phone: 3019752345
- E-Mail Address
-
grace.garrity@nist.gov
(grace.garrity@nist.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) seeks vendors that are capable of providing a specialized heat stabilization instrument to support NIST measurement efforts at the Hollings Marine Laboratory. This announcement is not a Request for Proposals or Quotes (RFP/RFQ) and does not commit the Government to award a contract now or in the future. The information contained in this notice is DRAFT only and as such, is subject to change prior to issuance of a solicitation. No solicitation is available at this time. After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive or non-competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. If at least two qualified small business sources are identified during this market research stage, this acquisition may be solicited as a small business set aside. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses (SB, SDB, WOSB, HUB Zone, SDVOSB and VOSB). This requirement is assigned a NAICS code of 334516 with a Small Business Size Standard of 1,000 employees. Preliminary market research efforts indicated that only one source was capable of providing equipment with the required capabilities, but in the interest of due diligence in market research, this notice seeks to identify any other vendors that may be capable of providing this equipment. Interested business organizations that believe they may be capable of meeting NIST's requirements detailed below should respond to this notice with a narrative demonstrating their ability to meet NIST's requirements. Contractors may provide supplemental information at their discretion. Responses should be submitted to Grace.Garrity@nist.gov no later than 9:00 AM Eastern Time on 12/16/2016. NIST's potential requirements are described below: Metabolite stability is an often overlooked component of many omic workflows, yet extremely vital. For metabolite-based studies to be validated, identification and quantification of metabolites should be minimally influenced by pre-analytical factors (such as clotting factors, time to freezing, homogenization, etc.). The preservation of the native metabolite profile from the time of collection is an ongoing pre-analytical challenge. Flash freezing samples in liquid nitrogen immediately after collection is considered one approach to immediately halt metabolic activity in the sample. However, recent data from NIST's laboratory suggests that this alone may not stop enzymatic activity (and consequential breakdown or conversion of metabolites). Sample collection in the natural environment (field studies) also pose a difficulty in this regard, as the availability of liquid nitrogen may be limited, and thus samples may not exhibit a true native profile when analyzed. Laboratory studies are not exempt from issues using flash freezing. The integrity of samples is maintained by remaining in a frozen state until chemical extraction; however, it is often necessary to weigh samples prior to extraction where thawing is undoubtedly occurring (increasing likelihood of enzymatic activity until extraction). Current options to better preserve the metabolite profile have included using inhibitors or chemical stabilizers; however, these additives are generally targeted and narrow in benefit (and not conducive to global omic profiling, meaning they generally only help a small sub-set of metabolites) and while these additives can be readily applied to liquid matrices such as plasma, solid matrices, such as tissues, require alternative approaches. The required equipment is an instrument that can provide a means to control stability of metabolites in a variety of matrices at various periods in the workflow. This "heat stabilization" instrument provides a controlled, pre-programmed approach to uniformly heat (conductive, i.e. heating the whole sample at once, instantaneously), which could be effectively applied to enhance stability during sample collection, sample processing and extraction, and sample storage (both long and short term). The concept of heat treatment (non-additive based) has been used as early as the 1940s, mostly achieved using crude heating devices (heat block, water bath, calorimeter). The required equipment is a state of the art adaptation of this concept: an instrument that allows a researcher to rapidly and uniformly heat a sample with explicit control of heating parameters (i.e. temperature) and pre-programmed heating templates based on the type and amount of sample analyzed. In addition, the instrument should be compatible with several sample matrices, including solid, liquid and dried blood spot media, using different cards. The system should also be compatible with both fresh and frozen samples, an important aspect for our work and ongoing efforts with the NIST Specimen Bank at HML. Also, due to NIST's environmental applications (collecting samples in the field), NIST also requires an instrument that is small, portable, and easy to use (standardized and repeatable). Essentially, NIST requires an instrument with the functionality capable of allowing the development of methods to reproducibly preserve samples and/or metabolites at any stage in the omic workflow.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/NIST-MML-17-SS3/listing.html)
- Record
- SN04341878-W 20161204/161202234304-936db4c2bcbdd6a465c86b7fe3f2586f (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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