DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE INFORMATION SYSTEM The National Cancer Institute anticipates issuing a sole source Request for Proposal, Number: N02-CO-71045-11, entitled: Development of Informatics Techniques for the NCI, Science Information System (SIS), to the National Computational Science Alliance (NCSA) based at the University of Illinois. The goal of the SIS is to develop a highly specialized scientific information resource to support the NCI and the cancer research community. The SIS is intended to enable scientists, science managers and other individuals to generate compre- hensive, integrated representations of current knowledge, past and ongoing NCI-sponsored research and emerging scientific questions regarding any aspect of cancer research or treatment. Some aspects of the SIS require advances in the state of the art relative to existing informatics theory and practice and this RFP is limited to development of those advanced techniques. NCSA will develop theoretical bases for semantic retrieval, indexing, and analysis of knowledge about cancer, for vocabulary matching across scientific lexicons, for improved protocols to support interaction with heterogeneous sources of biomedical information, and for synchronous collaboration among biomedical scientists working at a distance. NCSA will empirically test the theoretical approaches and develop proof of concept prototypes incorporating those that appear to offer significant practical advantages over current practice. NCSA is uniquely qualified to undertake these aspects of SIS support because of its: prior experience across the full range of relevant informatics theory and practice; familiarity with biomedical informatics; and ability to provide the very large scale hardware resources and software development resources needed for empirical testing and prototyping of semantic and concept-based computing. Further, NCSA is the only known source with extensive experience in: 1) computational methods to translate concepts and terms between the various vocabularies used in scientific and clinical fields associated with cancer research and treat- ment; 2) techniques for recognition of new biomedical knowledge and biomed- ical concepts via computational methods; and 3) computational methods to discover correlations between concepts resident in one scientific vocabulary and those resident in another vocabulary, all of which are considered essential to this effort. This is a notice of intent and not a solicitation for competitive proposals. However, concerns who believe they are qualified for the above effort and desire to submit a qualification statement must furnish concise responses directed specifically at the requirements mentioned above and also must address their experience in computational methodologies indentified above. Information submitted must be in sufficient detail to demonstrate the appropriate experience and ability to perform the requirement. Numbered Note 22 applies as follows: The proposed contract action is for supplies or services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302. Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement or submit proposals. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. However, all proposals received within forty-five days (thirty days if award is issued under an existing basic ordering agreement) after date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete with this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. WEB: Research Contracts Branch Home Page, http://wwwrcb.nci.nih.gov/. E-MAIL: David Keefer, Contract Specialist, keeferd@rcb.nci.nih.gov.

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