A -- MICROELECTRONIC BIOPROCESSES PROGRAM FOR MICROCHEMICAL OLIGONUCLEOTIDE MANUFACTURING, MANIPULATION, AND AMPLIFICATION TECHNOLOGIES

Notice Date

March 16, 2001

Contracting Office

Office of Special Technology, 10530 Riverview Road, Building 3, Ft. Washington, MD 20744

ZIP Code

20744

Solicitation Number

N39998-01-Q-7057

Response Due

May 1, 2001

Point of Contact

Sylvia Morales (301) 203-2636

E-Mail Address

BAA 01-Q-7057 (palbright@darpa.mil)

Description

The Office of Special Technology is soliciting proposals for DARPA's Advanced Technology Office (ATO) for advanced research, modeling, design, development, and testing of microchemical oligonucleotide manufacturing, manipulation, and amplification technologies. The program goal is to be able to manufacture significant quantities of approximately 10,000 base (b) oligonucleotides of arbitrarily specified sequence on time scales of less than 24 hours. It is anticipated that this will necessitate pararell array manufacturing schemes that manufacture and then assemble subchains, although alternative credible methodologies may also be explored. It is also anticipated that at least one amplification phase (through, e.g., the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR) will be required to yield significant quantities of the desired oligonucleotide chain. It is further anticipated that significant improvements in kinetics and yields will result from the microchemical implementation of oligonucleotide manufacture, manipulation, and assembly. The actual goals for produced quantities and sequence error rates will be specified by the Government early in the program. Since it is expected that the resultant capability will form a subsystem within future general DNA computing and adaptable bioassay systems, it is expected that the objective microchemical oligonucleotide manufacturing, manipulation, and amplification technologies will be capable of miniaturization to the point where they could be integrated with electronic components onto circuit boards; this would include reagent storage (at the microliter or less scale) and handling. Thus, it is expected that the capability to recycle reagents will be important. Although it is anticipated that microchemical implementations of standard oligonucleotide manufacture, manipulation, and amplification techniques will form the core of this program, novel or unconventional approaches may also be explored, and perhaps demonstrated. It should be understood that although the objective of this program is to demonstrate the feasibility of chip-sized microchemical oligonucleotide manufacture and processing, it is expected that this demonstration will consist of a brassboard capability, with perhaps manual intervention at different stages of the processing, accompanied by quantitative analyses that demonstrate a credible path to full miniaturization and automation. This BAA solicits proposals in the following five topic areas: (1) Microchemical oligonucleotide manufacture, manipulation, and amplification process modeling and simulation; (2) Microchemical long-chain oligonucleotide manufacture; (3) Microchemical long-chain oligonucleotide amplification; (4) Oligonucleotide sequence error correction and control; and (5) Novel or unconventional methods for microchemical oligonucleotide manufacture, manipulation, and amplification.

Web Link

Click here to download a copy of the BAA. (http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/meb.htm)

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010320/ASOL010.HTM (W-075 SN50G4E7)