SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Biomedical Computing for DCEG
- Notice Date
- 10/5/2010
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, 6120 Executive Blvd., EPS Suite 600, Rockville, Maryland, 20852
- ZIP Code
- 20852
- Solicitation Number
- NIH-NCI-DCEG-11-01
- Point of Contact
- Lisa Coleman, Phone: 301-496-8605, Juana T Diaz, Phone: (301) 496-8613
- E-Mail Address
-
licoleman@mail.nih.gov, diazj@mail.nih.gov
(licoleman@mail.nih.gov, diazj@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT, NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. A SOLICITATION DOCUMENT WILL NOT BE ISSUED AND PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE REQUESTED. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Office of Acquisitions intends to negotiate a 7 year contract with Information Management Services Inc. (IMS), to provide biomedical data management, analytical support, systems and web development and maintenance to approximately 150 researchers in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG/NCI), who publish an average of over 400 publications each year. IMS coordinates and supports the tasks for an average of over 100 concurrent, diverse, domestic and international DCEG's studies each month. This support is crucial to DCEG's mission to discover the molecular and environmental etiologic determinants of cancer and new approaches to cancer prevention. This support enables DCEG to uniquely conduct epidemiologic and genetics research projects that are: • high risk, • need long-term commitments of funding and scientific staff, • require a national programmatic approach, • call for a quick response to emerging public health or scientific issues, • might go unattended by groups without a national and international reach, or • require an interdisciplinary strategy fostered by the breadth of expertise and resources in the intramural research programs of NCI and NIH. The project requires a contractor to manage and coordinate staff in support of varied and simultaneous biomedical related projects of variable population size (hundred to several hundred thousand individuals) and complexity (molecular data including high-throughput genomics data, environmental exposure data, complex study designs, and multiple data sources etc). Specifically, the project will provide computing support for its biostatisticians, epidemiologists, geneticists and other DCEG professionals. This computer-related support falls into four main categories: (1) Biomedical data management activities includes appropriate manual and automated secure processes to enter, store, and retrieve study data and documentation for environmental and molecular epidemiology and genetics studies (2) Statistical programming, analysis, reporting, and infrastructure services includes providing support for programming to streamline analyses, performing environmental and molecular epidemiology and genetics study data analyses as directed by DCEG investigators, developing new statistical methods and study-design development, and for report and manuscript preparation (3) Systems design, development, and maintenance support is required for study data management, statistical analysis and science administration processes such as budget tracking (4) Web design, development and maintenance support includes the design, development, and maintenance of study websites. Statutory authority: 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1), as set forth in FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii). IMS is the only responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The contractor is uniquely qualified by virtue of its continued performance over this period of time and is the only source that can provide the services for the following reasons: 1) IMS has the required number of specialized interdisciplinary personnel that is sufficiently cross-trained in biomedical data management, statistical analysis and programming, systems and web development, and maintenance ensuring seamless support for all of the tasks for all of the studies (over 150) in a coordinated manner. With a new contractor, new staff would need to be hired and trained with unavoidable learning curve inefficiencies as well as training costs. 2) IMS has extensive experience in concurrently supporting multiple epidemiologic research projects of variable population size and complexity, several of which involve non-NIH and international institutions. 3)IMS has been heavily involved in the preplanning of several ongoing studies and is crucial to the performance of the tasks. The time required to gain this experience by a new contractor would lead to extensive time delays and lost opportunities. 4)IMS has expert experience in: i. Creating analytic datasets pooled from several studies and harmonized to ensure comparability to support consortia efforts focused on integrative analyses to study gene-environment interactions. ii. Maintaining data systems to support DCEG study data storage and analysis as well as for science administration. iii. Performing DCEG investigator-requested analyses using diverse classical and molecular epidemiological data analysis algorithms and modules implemented in multiple languages i.e., SAS, R, MatLab, S-Plus, Stata, SPSS, C++, and FORTRAN. iv. Building innovative and computationally efficient user-friendly software to package multiple analysis modules to enable stream-lined multi-step analyses or to facilitate development and use of new statistical methods for diverse classical and molecular epidemiological data. v. Selection of controls within cohorts with banked biospecimens for the development of nested case-control and case-cohort studies of biomarkers. 5) IMS is highly experienced in working with other contracts that support DCEG studies in the actual conduct of its field studies nationally and internationally. For example, IMS has been working closely with DCEG's laboratory contractor to facilitate providing data from the recent genomics high-throughput technologies increasingly being used by DCEG for gene environment interaction analyses. Similarly, IMS has extensive experience working with biospecimen collection and storage contractors to track, store, and report biospecimen data, increasingly being used to study gene-environment interactions. Communication protocols between these entities would need to be redeveloped thus delaying the science and substantially costly. 6) IMS has developed quality control and assurance and documentation procedures to ensure accurate use and reuse of data and resources. Transition to another contractor would necessitate redevelopment of standard operating procedures which would be costly and cause delays to the Government. 7) IMS has been innovatively adopting and implementing software and data standardization efforts being implemented within the NCI where appropriate. They have adapted and reused software within the different NIH organizations which substantially reduces costs to the Government. 8) IMS performs similar data management and analysis intensive tasks for two other NCI Divisions, namely the Division of Cancer Prevention and the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. This enables sharing of infrastructure (equipment and building) and staff resources to optimize their use across these Divisions and thus reduce costs to the Government as well as lead start-up time. The support by IMS is critical for DCEG to continue its analyses of ongoing as well as completed studies and for any new studies that would need to be analyzed during this time-frame. Timely follow up of published methods/findings is essential to lead the field especially in the field of genomics which is a highly competitive field. IMS assists during all of the phases of the publishing process including providing the requested datasets for analyses, performing the requested analyses and help with manuscript preparation. However, if there are sources who feel they are able to perform the requirement, they may respond by submitting a capability statement (5 page limit) within 15 days of publication of this synopsis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The capability statements received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Overnight deliveries should be mailed to the National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, Lisa Coleman, 6120 Executive Boulevard, Suite 600, Room 6064 MSC 7192 Bethesda, Maryland 20852. No collect calls or facsimile transmissions will be accepted. Respondents may submit their capability statements via email in addition to 2 hard copies.
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