National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Contracts Operations Branch, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Room 6100, MSC 7902, Bethesda, MD 20892

66 -- LEICA TCS SP CONFOCAL MICROSCOPE, UV READY SOL NHLBI-PS-99-403 POC Gina M. Cianflone, Contract Specialist, (301) 435-0363; Christopher Belt, Contracting Officer, (301) 435-0366 The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) intends to procure on a sole source basis to Leica, Inc., 111 Deer Lake Rd., Deerfield, IL 60015 for a TCS SP Confocal Microscope, UV Ready. Specifically, the Contractor shall deliver and install a Leica TCS SP Confocal Laser Microscope, UV Ready to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The confocal microscope shall have all of the following technical specifications: A. The confocal microscope shall be compatible with the Argon UV laser and the microscope lenses (objective and condensors) that are already available in the confocal Leica TCS-4D microscope. B. The confocal microscope shall include the following: 1) Directness of light path. The light path from the sample to the detector shall be simple and direct., i.e. minimizing the number of mirrors, prisms and lens. 2) The confocal shall have four simultaneous fluorescent channels. 3) The stepping motor shall have the ability to step in 50 nm increments or less and shall be accurate (at least within 50 nm). 4) The confocal shall be able to scan a full 512 X 512 image in 0.5 s or less. 5) The confocal shall have four (4) computer controlled detectors. 6) The confocal microscope shall include a research microscope stand with built-in detectors, scanning units and lasers, also usable for all conventional transmitted and reflected microscopy techniques. 7) The confocal microscope shall be capable of accepting five (5) simultaneously attached laser light sources: Of these five (5), three (3) lasers are to be delivered with the instrument. These are: argon, krypton, and helium-neon. A fourth laser (argon-UV) is available in our unit and maybe be switched from one instrument to another. 8) Three (3) confocal detectors and one (1) transmitted light detector are needed at the present time. The instrument should be UV-ready so that a fourth detector can be added as needed. 9) The confocal detectors shall be equipped with a digitally controlled pinhole. 10) The system shall provide non-confocal laser scanning transmitted and reflected light techniques under computer control. 11) The confocal microscope shall have the ability to have four (4) different channels scanned simultaneously, but only three (3) need to be displayed at the same time in the monitor. 12) It shall allow simultaneous four (4) channel laser line scanning and detection. 13) The confocal microscope shall have a motorized stage (40 nm focusing steps) and motorized nose piece (100 nm focusing steps) with computer controls. 14) The system shall be controlled by Pentium II computer system integrated into a multi-task work station. 15) The image size shall be user selectable up to 1024 x 1024. 16) The system shall have full digitally operated, motorized control of selection of excitation wave lengths, by means of necessary filters plus an acusto-optical tuning system and selection of wavelengths for scanning by means of a prism monochromator. 17) The confocal microscope shall have digitally controlled and reproducible contrast and brightness settings. 18) The system shall include X-Z scan up to a minimum of 512 lines. 19) Images shall be displayed in High-Definition non-interlaced video format: image format shall be accessible to hard copy options. 20) The system shall include capability of interpretive level, user-defined Macro routines within the standard software. 21) The system shall include 3-D reconstruction software to produce two-color pairs. 22) The confocal microscope shall include shock-absorbing table which supports and isolates microscope body and all lasers from vibrations. 23) The laser lines from the three (3) lasers supplied with the microscope shall be aligned and corrected for precise overlay (+/- 1 pixel) with emission from visible lasers. 24) The system shall use laser scanning, with the beam scanned by a single mirror. 25) Images shall be stored in TIF image format. 26) The fluorescence channels shall be selected by the use of a prism monochromator in the scanning head. The instrument shall be UV-ready, so that it can be used with a UV-laser currently available in our laboratory. The contractor shall deliver, install, and provide operator training. It is believed that Leica, Inc. is the sole-source for this requirement under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 because Leica, Inc. is the only manufacturer of a confocal microscope with the spectrophotometric type of scanning system feature for the detection of different wavelengths of fluorescence emission. This new system results in considerable improvement in the separation of closely adjacent wavelengths of fluorescence emission, and this technical improvement cannot be duplicated by other confocal microscopes that feature the use of color filters and dichroroic mirrors. Any competing firm that believes it is capable of providing the above requirement is invited to provide sufficient documentation to demonstrate that capability to the contract specialist, Gina M. Cianflone, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Contracts Operations, Procurement Section, Building RKL2, Room 6150A, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7902. Note 22: The proposed contract action is for supplies for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under authority of FAR 6.302. Interested parties 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 15 days after date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete 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. Posted 04/27/99 (W-SN324949). (0117)

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