SOURCES SOUGHT
Q -- Human Cortical Glutamatergic Neurons
- Notice Date
- 2/1/2018
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 325414
— Biological Product (except Diagnostic) Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 4211, MSC 9559, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892-9559, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20892-9559
- Solicitation Number
- NIHDA201800049
- Archive Date
- 2/23/2018
- Point of Contact
- Jeffrey Schmidt, Phone: (301) 402-1488, Mark E. McNally, Phone: 3014436677
- E-Mail Address
-
schmidtjr@mail.nih.gov, mark.mcnally@nih.gov
(schmidtjr@mail.nih.gov, mark.mcnally@nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of all qualified sources to perform a potential requirement. This notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice isThis is a Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of all qualified sources to perform a potential requirement. This notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice is strictly for research and information purposes only. Background: The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) focuses on getting more treatments to more patients more quickly. Several thousand genetic diseases affect humans of which only about 500 have any treatment. NCATS is directly addressing this problem by discovering new technologies and other approaches that could greatly accelerate the process of developing and deploying solutions that can be used by all translational researchers. The Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) biology program's mission is to encourage and speed the development of new treatments for diseases with high-unmet medical needs. The group has previously developed multiple assays for quantitative high throughput screening to find novel compounds, which may be used to treat lysosomal storage diseases such as Niemann-Pick disease types A, C1 and C2. The hypothesis for this project is that neurons exhibiting Niemann-Pick disease phenotypes will have increased lysosomal accumulation and substrate accumulation in lysosomes. The contractor will grow stem cells into actual neurons that have the Niemann-Pick phenotype. The contractor will send the neurons to TRND for further testing. The contractor shall be responsible for validating the patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), producing the neurons, and assessing the quality of the neurons. Purpose and Objectives: To procure human cortical glutamatergic neurons differentiated from patient-derived iPSCs for the TRND laboratory. Project requirements: The contractor will receive frozen iPSCs, provided by TRND, that were derived from patients with a lysosomal storage disease. The iPSCs TRND is sending out will have the disease phenotype. The contractor will thaw and culture the iPSC line to validate its quality. If necessary, the contractor will select and expand high-quality sub-colonies within the culture before neural differentiation. The contractor will produce 20 vials of human cortical glutamatergic neurons from the iPSCs lines. The cortical glutamatergic neurons will be frozen at 5 million neurons/vial in 100 µL of freezing medium with a total batch size of 20 vials. The contractor will freeze all cells and ship them along with seeding supplements which will make it possible for the neurons to grow and survive in a 1536-well plate environment. Shipment will be overnight using a liquid nitrogen vapor shipper to TRND. Anticipated period of performance: Three (3) months. Other important considerations: The Government will solicit this requirement using trade-off evaluation procedures. The Government will evaluate contractor: 1.) Experience in large quantity production of human cortical glutamatergic neurons from iPSCs lines and capability of high repeatability of these iPSC derived neurons. 2.) Capability to accelerate the rate of maturation of the neurons into fully mature neurons in less than five (5) days after thawing. 3.) Understanding of the project and technical approach. All evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, will be significantly more important than cost. Capability statement /information sought: Contractors that believe they possess the ability to provide the services listed under project requirements should submit documentation of their ability to meet each of the project requirements to the Contract Specialist. Responses shall include a capabilities statement and the following information: • respondents' opinions about the difficulty and/or feasibility of the potential requirement or proposed acquisition, possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts; • information regarding respondents': (a) staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (b) current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work; (c) prior completed projects of similar nature; (d) corporate experience and management capability; and (e) examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information; The respondent must also provide their DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc., pursuant to the applicable NAICS code and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements. One (1) copy of the response is required and must be in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format using 11-point or 12-point font, 8-1/2" x 11" paper size, with 1" top, bottom, left and right margins, and with single or double spacing. The information submitted must be must be in and outline format that addresses each of the elements of the project requirement and in the capability statement /information sought paragraphs stated herein. A cover page and an executive summary may be included but is not required. The response is limited to two (2) page limit. The 2-page limit does not include the cover page, executive summary, or references, if requested. The response must include the respondents' technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses. All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically to the Contracting Officer. Facsimile responses are NOT accepted. The response must be submitted to Contracting Officer Jeffrey Schmidt, at schmidtjr@mail.nih.gov, and copied to Contract Specialist Mark McNally, at mcnallyme@mail.nih.gov. The response must be received on or before February 8, 2018, 3:00 PM, Eastern Time. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a presolicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).
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