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

66 -- CONFOCAL LASER-SCANNING INSTRUMENT SOL NHLBI-PS-2000-616 DUE 073100 POC Livie V. Spearman, Contract Specialist, (301) 435-0366; Debra C. Hawkins, Chief, Procurement Section, (301) 435-0366!! WEB: Requests For RFP, spearmal@nhlbi.nih.gov. E-MAIL: hawkinsd@nhlbi.nih.gov, spearmal@nhlbi.nih.gov. It is the intent of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of purchase a Confocal Laser Scanning System for the Laboratory of Cardiac Energetics, Division of Intramural Research, Core Imaging Facility, which shall be capable of state of the art imaging of living and fixed tissues and cells. The successful contractor will construct the Confocal Laser Scanning System, provide installation, and provide training to the staff for the routine operation and maintenance of the system. The confocal laser-scanning System shall be capable of accommodating multiple users and have the capacity for future upgrading as the need arises. It shall be a versatile system optimized for ease of use and maintenance. Specifically, the System shall include the following features: 1. Basic System, Lasers, and Filter Sets The system must have a minimum of three photomultiplier tubes to allow for simultaneous multi-wavelength signal collection with individual pinholes for each channel to optimize for slice thickness. Thebasic system must have multi wavelength capabilities ranging from 351-633 nm. Scanhead filter and dichroic mirrors sets must include DAPI, Rhodamine, Fluorescein, Snarf, CY2, CY3, CY5, and Lucifer Yellow. The system must have a motorized stage which can be software controlled to allow for z- sectioning to a precision of 1mm. The system must also allow for transmitted light imaging. The system must allow for attenuation of laser intensity over a broad range using either Acousto Optical Tunable Filters (AOTFs) or neutral density filters These filters must allow attenuation from 0-100% in 1% increments. The system must have a spectrometer capable of measuring fluorescence emission ranging from 400-1000 nm. The system must include appropriate laser cooling apparatus and an anti-vibration table for the microscope and scan unit. The system should contain an assortment of high N.A., long working distance objectives (> 150 um) ranging from 10-100x. 2. Automation, Scan Control and Automatic Hardware Optimization Control of all operations including changing filter sets, pinhole settings, laser attenuation, laser excitation wavelength, or photomultiplier channel must be automated in the scan head to allow for efficient and fast movement between experimental configurations. The system must allow for digital scanning for region of interest image acquisition and selective photobleaching. The system must have feedback sensor for evaluating and adjusting laser intensity to minimize laser amplitude fluctuations. Control of all hardware for image scanning must be macro-programmable to allow for automation of complex experiments. The system must allow for line scanning. 3. Imaging: Imaging resolution should approach the submicron level at optimal experimental configurations. Image size must be at least 1K by 1K pixels. Imaging speed should be a minimum of 2-4 frames/sec for 512 X 512 image sizes. Adequate handling of samples with wide range of intensities requires that the system provide image depth of 8-12 bit digitization. 4. Computer Hardware and Software The system should include a state of the art computer that controls all aspects of image acquisition, microscope operation, and image processing. These requirements necessitate at least 512 Mb of Ram and 16 Mb of VRAM, SCSI interfaces to CLSM hardware, large hard drive memory (at least five (5) Gb) with a video monitor system large enough to accommodate multi-image display. Software control must include frame averaging, various on-line filtering capabilities, rationing methods, and user specified experiment configuration. At the very least the user specified experiment configuration must provide options for automating sequential image acquisition (time series physiological studies) and storage of acquired images, z sectioning and volumetric reconstruction. Software should allow for image integration & summation. Image processing software must allow for 3D reconstruction, region of interest intensity measurement, and kinetic data plots. 5. Tests and Samples Images demonstrating the best resolution provided by their system using objectives with N.A.s of at least 1.2 and magnification of 63-100x. Submitted images can be of anything of the offerors choosing. The solicitation, negotiation and award of this requirement will be accordance Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Item procedures. The award of a firm, fixed-price type contract is anticipated. There are no set-aside restrictions for this requirement. The applicable Standard Industrial Classification code (SIC) is 3845, size standard 500 employees. Interested parties must request a copy of the solicitation, number NHLBI-PS-2000-616, from the following address: Attention: Livie V. Spearman, III., U.S. Department Of Health & Human Services Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute, Division of Extramural Activities, Contracts Operations Branch, Procurement Section, Rockledge II Centre, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Room 6148, Bethesda, MD 20892-7902. Requests for copies of the solicitation must be in writing and may be requested by FAX to (301) 480-3345 and will only be accepted if dated & signed by an authorized company representative. The solicitation will be available approximately ten (10) calendar days from the publication date of this synopsis. The solicitation will be released to all offerors requesting a copy. All responsible sources may submit a proposal, which if timely received shall be considered by the agency. Posted 07/11/00 (W-SN473340). (0193)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0321 20000713\66-0011.SOL)

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