A -- BIO-SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

Notice Date

December 22, 2000

Contracting Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contract Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA 22203-1714

ZIP Code

22203-1714

Solicitation Number

BAA 01-17

Response Due

November 30, 2001

Point of Contact

Mr. Alan Frederick, Contracts Management, DARPA/CMO, FAX (703) 696-2208

E-Mail Address

Click here for administrative, technical or contractual (baa01-17@darpa.mil)

Description

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office (ISO) is issuing a single step (full initial proposal) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to solicit research proposals (structured as a two (2) year base effort plus two (2) one (1) year options) for the Bio-Surveillance System project. The goal of this program is to develop a prototype system for protecting DOD military and civilian personnel from bio-warfare attack. It will be capable of detecting a covert release of a biological pathogen by monitoring non-traditional data sources, detecting and classifying anomalies and issuing alerts. This project requires the development and integration of diverse biological modeling and information systems technologies. It is unlikely that one contractor will be capable of satisfying all the requirements of this solicitation and therefore it is encouraged that integrated teams of performers be proposed. Approximately 2-3 parallel contract awards are anticipated for end-to-end prototypes. RESEARCH NEED: The Bio-Surveillance System project will dramatically increase DOD's ability to detect a clandestine biological warfare attack, involving both natural and engineered pathogens, in time to respond and avoid a large number of potential casualties. New information technologies are needed to rapidly detect and identify disease events in the military and general population. A DARPA Information System Office study was able to demonstrate that it was possible to identify an abnormal health event caused by a terrorist release of a pathogenic agent several days before traditional health surveillance methods. The project mined grocery store, pharmacy, and absentee databases and gained access to healthcare records, after obtaining and receiving voluntary permission for such access, to find disease indicators as inputs to abnormal disease detection algorithms. This announcement constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA 01-17) as specified in FAR 6.102(d)(2)(i). Information in this CBD announcement is NOT complete. Prospective offerors MUST also refer to the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) before submitting a proposal. Long Range Vision: The vision for the BioSurveillance Project is to develop the information technology necessary to alert the DOD of any clandestine bio-agent release within the CONUS, in time for adequate response. The envisioned network would gather and integrate information from non-traditional health information sources (e.g. school absentee reports, veterinary reports, over-the-counter pharmacy sales, web page inquiries) and state-of-the-art bio-sensors for a city with a large DOD population. The system would support real-time epidemiological analysis and autonomous alerts of any anomalous or unusual health event in the DOD military or civilian population. Once a possible anomalous event is detected, the system would provide the capability for a medical expert to quickly analyze the possible cause and isolate the infected population for timely treatment. PROGRAM SCOPE: In order to accomplish detection, a central focus of this program is the development of abnormal health detectors and disease models by mining existing human, agriculture and animal health databases for indicators of abnormal health conditions. The development of an emulation capability is necessary to perform sensitivity analyses on hypothesized events to determine which indicators are most valuable for bio terrorist releases in both the military and civilian communities. The emulation capability would include emulators of would-be detectors to sample the air, water, and food supply as well as detectors that would sample the genetic composition of bio-pathogens discovered in sentinel individuals for early recognition of the onset of disease. Finally, a prototype bio-surveillance system would be constructed for a selected city based on previously selected criteria, and demonstrated in a series of field experiments by injecting simulated biological event data into the real-time data streams of the testbed system. This program does not seek to develop any bio-sensors nor will it seek to develop any new databases. Rather it will develop anomaly detection and attack characterization algorithms based on existing databases and other information sources. Its architecture must be adaptable to support future, threats, data bases and sensor feeds. TECHNICAL TOPIC AREAS: There are four primary technology areas that are believed to be instrumental in achieving program goals. They are: 1. Integrated Bio-Surveillance System Architecture. The system should be capable of integrating heterogeneous data sources, integrating bio-sensors and health monitoring data, and the dynamic management of the monitoring process. 2. Autonomous Detection Algorithms. Development of autonomous anomaly detection algorithms that will work in conjunction with human-assisted classification, event identification and attack characterization algorithms is needed. 3. Disease Models for Autonomous Detection. The early detection of exposure of discrete segments of the general populace to biological warfare agents will likely involve the use of higher precision models of dynamic epidemiology and network models of sub-population spatial dynamics. 4. Privacy Protection. Data mining of human health databases must conform to appropriate privacy protection regulations. The program will not affect the clinical care of patients. Software agents may be employed to perform this function using such methods as k-similar techniques that assure appropriate anonymity. Offerors are encouraged to review the agent-based programs within the Information Systems Office (Control of Agent-Based Systems (CoABS), DARPA Agent Mark Up Language (DAML), and Taskable Agent Software Kit (TASK)) which are accessible at http://dtsn.darpa.mil/iso/. PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION: The Bio-Surveillance System program projects that a multi-phase approach will be needed to achieve program goals. The first year will entail a concept development phase to identify and design epidemiological models, signal detection and alerting algorithms, privacy protecting software, system architectures and emulation environment development. Prototypes of various system components are expected. The second year will integrate and extend the concept development initiatives by creating an initial system prototype. Following phase two, the prototypes will be evaluated, and it is possible that the number of performer teams will be down-selected to continue with developing a fully functional prototype in phase three (year three). The last phase will consist of a set of robust demonstrations and transition activities (year four). ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: 1. General Requirements. Each cost proposal shall contain a section satisfying the following requirements: awards made under this BAA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission, and the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. If the offeror believes that no such conflict exists, it shall so state in this section. It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information, and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. 2. Special Resource Personnel. The Government intends to use personnel from Schafer Corporation of Arlington, Virginia as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation, and to provide advice on specific technical areas. These contractor personnel are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose other than these administrative or advisory tasks. Contractor personnel are required to sign the Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements (OCI/NDA). By submission of its proposal, each offeror agrees that proposal information may be disclosed to these selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to these contractors must be clearly marked and segregated from other submitted proposal material. 3. Additional Information. DARPA is seeking participation from the widest number of offerors. Toward this end, DARPA is willing to consider all types of proposals including traditional FAR/DFARS type contracts, grants and "Other Transactions." Offerors interested in pursuing an "Other Transaction" under this BAA should contact Mr. Alan Frederick, Contracts Management Office (CMO), DARPA, at 703-696-0047 or afrederick@darpa.mil. EVALUATION CRITERIA: Proposals will be selected through a technical/scientific/business decision process with technical and scientific considerations being most important. Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria: (1) Technical Approach including innovation, validation, and integration; (2) Approach to Technology Transfer; (3) Offeror's Capabilities and Related Experience and (4) Cost Realism. The PIP provides further details concerning the evaluation criteria including order of importance. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: Proposers MUST obtain the BAA 01-17 PIP, which includes further information on the areas of interest: technical overview, program schedule, expected deliverables, preparation and formats for proposals, and proposal evaluation criteria. The PIP may be obtained from the World Wide Web one working day after release of the BAA in the CBD publication at URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under "Solicitations"), or requests may be sent via e-mail to baa01-17@darpa.mil. To be considered, full proposals must be submitted to DARPA/ISO, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (Attn: BAA 01-17) on or before 4:00 p.m., local time, Friday, March 2, 2001. In addition to hardcopies, electronic copies of proposals should be submitted on floppy diskette(s) or Iomega 100MB Zip disk(s) according to instructions in the PIP. Proposals submitted by fax or e-mail are not acceptable and will not be considered. The Government anticipates completing the evaluation during the second quarter of fiscal year 2001. PROPOSAL FORMAT: Proposals shall consist of two separately bound volumes. Volume I shall provide the technical proposal and management approach and Volume II shall address the cost. Detailed instructions for completing the proposals are contained in the PIP. Proposals not meeting the specified format described in the PIP will not be reviewed. OTHER GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS: DARPA will construct a balanced program in order to meet its needs. A total of approximately $2.5M will be available in FY01 for multiple efforts. In FY02, there is approximately $7M anticipated. In FY03 there is approximately $9M, and in FY04 about $5M is expected. Size of each award and duration of efforts will vary according to the type of effort undertaken. All responsible sources may submit a proposal that will be considered by the Agency. Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals; however, no portion of this BAA 01-17 will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of technology for exclusive competition among these entities. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. This Commerce Business Daily notice, in conjunction with the BAA 01-17 PIP, constitutes the total BAA as contemplated in FAR 6.102 (d) (2) (i). No additional information is available. This BAA 01-17 will be open for a period of one year after its publication in the CBD. COMMUNICATING WITH DARPA: All administrative correspondence and questions concerning this BAA must be directed, in writing, to one of the administrative addresses below. Electronic mail (e-mail) is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail for most technical and administrative correspondence regarding this BAA. Technical and contractual questions should include the originator's full name and return e-mail address in the text. All questions and answers will be posted to URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under "Solicitations"). ADMINISTRATIVE ADDRESSES: The PIP and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are available at URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under "Solicitations"). Written requests for these documents may be sent by facsimile to 703-516-6065 addressed to ATTENTION BAA 01-17 INFORMATION, or by surface mail addressed to DARPA/ISO, ATTN: BAA 01-17 INFORMATION, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. Administrative, technical or contractual questions should be sent via e-mail, if possible, to baa01-17@darpa.mil. If e-mail is not available, please direct questions to one of the above addresses. These requests must include the name, address, and phone number of a point of contact. Posted 07/XX/00 (W-SN3408XX). (0160)

Web Link

Click here for the PIP and Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.darpa.mil )

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20001227/ASOL001.HTM (W-357 SN5095U2)