REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS AND NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING: TOOLS FOR DNA DIAGNOSTICS COMPETITION 98-08 Department of Commerce Technology Administration National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program Administration Building 101, Rm. A407 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001 Date: REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS AND NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING: The NIST Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is soliciting proposals under its focused program competition 98-08, Tools for DNA Diagnostics, and announces public meetings (Proposers' Conferences) for all interested parties. A total estimated $82 million in first year funding is available for new awards for all of the fiscal year 1998 ATP competitions (approximately eight to ten). The actual number of proposals funded under each competition will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the amount of funding requested in the highest ranked proposals. Outyear funding beyond the first year is contingent on the approval of future Congressional appropriations and satisfactory project performance. The Tools for DNA Diagnostics program will promote U.S. economic growth by supporting sustained, high-risk research and development, which will accelerate the use of DNA diagnostics in many fields including healthcare. The Tools for DNA Diagnostics Program will develop low cost, integrated, miniaturized, high throughput, parallelizable, automated systems that can be used to obtain DNA sequence information efficiently and accurately and will provide the basis for a broad spectrum of economical products and applications. The program will require the talents of engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and molecular biologists. Through the efforts of these investigators, technological advances in microchemistry, micromachining, separation technologies, detection systems, microelectronics, and information technology will be efficiently integrated. The program will determine, analyze, and store DNA sequences for diagnostic applications, ranging from healthcare to agriculture to the environment. The innovative new products that will ultimately result from this R&D in the underlying technology will be automated, miniaturized whenever possible, high-throughput, accurate, low cost, and user friendly. Sequencing instruments for studying the effects of environmental mutagens require a very high degree of sensitivity since the goals will include searching for rare genetic changes in cell populations. The business goal is to support development of a new, and very large, potential market opportunity based on DNA-diagnostic systems. Recent advances in DNA technology have set the stage for development of systems that will have a wide variety of commercial applications. Successful accomplishment of these goals would create new opportunities in many fields such as healthcare, agriculture, veterinary medicine, environmental monitoring, industrial bioprocessing, toxicology, and personal identification. The program should enable industry to deliver DNA diagnostics to a variety of industrial sectors at a price 10 to 100 times cheaper than those currently available and reduce the cost of DNA sequencing and resequencing. Proposals will not be accepted that design, develop or target drugs, agrochemicals, herbicides, etc. based on genomic information or gene discovery and de novo sequencing of any DNA fragment or genome. Only FULL proposals are being solicited under this focused program competition 98-08. Abbreviated proposals (pre-proposals) WILL NOT be accepted. The due date for submission of 98-08 FULL proposals is 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, March 18, 1998. Should the NIST facility be closed on the specified due date, ATP proposals will be due at 3 p.m. Eastern time on the next business day that the NIST facility is open. Proposals received after this deadline WILL NOT be considered. Send proposals to: Advanced Technology Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Administration Building 101, Rm. A407, Quince Orchard & Clopper Roads, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001. Mark envelope Focused Program 98-08. Full proposals submitted byfacsimile or electronic mail WILL NOT be accepted. If a proposer's full proposal is judged to be of high enough quality to be invited in for an oral review, ATP reserves the right to submit a list of questions to the proposer that must be addressed at the oral review. The ATP operates under program procedures published at Part 295, Title 15, of the Code of Federal Regulations. The provisions of the 12/15/97 Federal Register notice announcing the availability of funding for the ATP competitions, are incorporated by reference in this notice. The ATP Proposal Preparation Kit dated December 1997 (containing proposal cover sheets, other required forms, background material, and instructions for submission of proposals) and the Tools for DNA Diagnostics 98-08 focused program booklet (containing a paper describing the scope of this focused program) may be requested by phone: 1-800-ATP-FUND; fax: 301-926-9524 or 301-590-3053; e-mail: atp@nist.gov; or letter at the address shown above. The Kit is also available on theATP World Wide Web site http://www.atp.nist.gov under the heading Publications. The ATP is mailing the new Kit to all those individuals whose names are currently on the ATP mailing list. Those individuals need not contact the ATP to request the new Kit. The 98-08 focused program booklet is also available on ATP web site under the heading Competitions and printed copies are available upon request from ATP. Public meetings (Proposers' Conferences) for potential proposers and other interested parties will be held on the following four dates and nine locations: Thursday, January 15, 1998, NIST, Administration Bldg. (101), Green Auditorium, Quince Orchard & Clopper Roads, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001 and will also be video teleconferenced to NIST Boulder, Building 1, Main Auditorium, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303. For further information on the NIST Boulder meeting contact Jerry Hendrix, 303-497-5646, E-mail jeryll.hendrix@nist.gov. In case of severe weather, please call NIST's Facilities Status Line, Gaithersburg, 301-975-NIST (6478); Boulder, 303-497-3000 for a prerecorded message of the status of NIST opening. If NIST is closed, the meeting will be rescheduled; Wednesday, January 21, 1998 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1113 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98101-3048, Phone: 800-521-2762; at the Austin Chariot Resort Inn, 7300 North IH 35, Austin, TX 78752-2606, Phone: 800-432-9202; and at the Adam's Mark Orlando, 1500 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809, Phone: 407-859-1500; Friday, January 23, 1998, at The Quality Hotel -- Los Angeles Airport, 5249 W. Century Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045, Phone: 310-645-2200; at the Holiday Inn O'Hare International, 5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018, Phone: 888-642-7344; and at the Sheraton Bradley Hotel, 1 Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, CT 06096, Phone: 860-627-5311; and Thursday, January 29, 1998, at the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn, 2 Montgomery Village Avenue, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, Phone: 301-948-8900. The conference at each location will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time and end at approximately 2 p.m. except for the January 15 meeting. On that date, to accommodate a video teleconference, the meeting at NIST will be held from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. local time and the meeting at NIST Boulder will be held from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. local time. These meetings will provide general information regarding the ATP, tips on preparing good proposals, and will provide an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. The format and content of each of the public meetings will be the same with the exception of the January 29, 1998, meeting which will also include a session in the afternoon to answer specific questions on the scope, technical, and business goals of this 98-08 focused program. Multiple locations for the public meetings are being offered for the convenience of the public. Attendance at these public meetings is not required. No registration fee will be charged. To register for a public meeting or for further information, contact ATP as noted above. WEB: Advanced Technology Program, atp.nist.gov. E-MAIL: Advanced Technology Program, atp@nist.gov.

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