SOLICITATION NOTICE
66 -- Acquisition of a Labcyte Echo525 Acoustic Liquid Dispenser (ALD)
- Notice Date
- 6/16/2017
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 334516
— Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Room 1E128, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852
- Solicitation Number
- N02RC72571-76
- Archive Date
- 6/28/2017
- Point of Contact
- Catherine Muir, Phone: (240) 276-5434
- E-Mail Address
-
muirca@mail.nih.gov
(muirca@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Contracting Office Address: Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Room 1E144, Bethesda, MD 20892, UNITED STATES Description: The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Center of Cancer Research (CCR), Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression (LRBGE), High-Throughput Imaging Facility (HiTIF), plans to procure, on a sole source basis, a Labcyte Echo525 Acoustic Liquid Dispenser (ALD) by Labcyte, Inc., 1190 Borregas Avenue; Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1302. The response close date of this notice for this requirement is in accordance with FAR 5.203(a)(1). This acquisition will be processed under FAR Part 12 - Acquisition for Commercial Items and in accordance with simplified acquisition procedures as stated in FAR Part 13.106-1(b)(2) and is exempt from the requirements of FAR Part 6. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334516 and the business size standard is 1,000 employees. Only one (1) award will be made as a result of this solicitation. This will be awarded as a firm fixed price type contract. The period of performance: delivery will be within 60 days from date of award. It has been determined there are no opportunities to acquire green products or services for this procurement. The mission of the High-Throughput Imaging Facility (HiTIF) is to support CCR researchers in the beginning-to-end design and implementation of High-Content imaging (HCI) assays. HCI allows the systematic characterization of multiple complex phenotypes at the single-cell level. HCI can be used to screen either siRNA libraries to probe and characterize molecular pathways of interest, or collections of small molecules to identify compounds with interesting biological properties and therapeutic potential. HCI is also extremely useful for the systematic quantification of exceedingly rare phenotypic events in large heterogeneous populations of cells. The HiTIF is equipped with automated liquid handling instrumentation for library management and dispensing of perturbing agents, with confocal fluorescence microscopy platforms for live, high-throughput image acquisition, and with automated image analysis and secondary data analysis software. The HiTIF provide HiTIF users with expertise in the use of HCI instrumentation and software and in the design, troubleshooting and implementation of HCI assays to answer a wide range of biological questions. The HiTIF is a shared resource open to all NCI/NIH investigators. The HiTIF provides unique expertise, instrumentation and software for the design and execution of fluorescence based, high-throughput imaging based assays. HiTIF currently supports 19 active projects in collaboration with investigators from NCI and NIH. These projects require a state-of-the-art, flexible, programmable, ALD capable of dispensing reagents in small volumes to test tens of thousands experimental conditions in a fully automated fashion. The Contractor shall provide the following: TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: Specifications/characteristics that are required include: - The ALD must transfer aqueous solutions with acoustic energy in 25nL droplet increments to eliminate the use of tips, avoid cross-contamination, avoid dilution of limiting biological samples, enable saving of expensive reagents, and enable the miniaturization of reaction volumes. - The ALD must be factory pre-calibrated with a maximum of five (5) ready-to-use hardware and software calibrations capable of dispense at a minimum: different liquids, different liquids compositions, different source liquids volumes, and different liquid viscosities. The factory pre-installed, ready-to-use hardware and software calibrations must allow non-expert end-users to operate the instrument and rapidly change dispense protocols upon changes of their experimental protocol without the need for calibrating the instrument for every change in liquid class, volume, composition and viscosity. - The factory pre-installed calibrations must allow end-user transfer of (at a minimum): aqueous solutions, 0 to 50% glycerol, detergents, qPCR master mixes, undiluted molecular biology reagents, fluorescently labelled DNA oligos, unlabeled DNA oligos, antibodies, dsRNA oligos, RNAi transfection reagents, bacteria, yeast cells, mammalian cells. - The ALD must have integrated software and hardware to measure and output the volume, glycerol content and acoustic impedance of the fluids present in every single well of the source plate on-the-fly while running an experimental protocol. These features are required because the ALD must be able to dispense liquids with any number of different classes, compositions, detergents concentrations, glycerol contents and viscosities in a single dispense protocol. - The ALD must be able to dispense from both these source plate formats: 6-well (Dead volume: equal or less than 280µL, Maximum volume: equal or more than 2800 µL) for bulk reagents dispenses; and 384-well (Maximum dead volume: 4µL, Maximum volume: equal or more than 60µL) for all other dispenses. Low dead volumes are necessary to avoid wasting expensive or limiting biological reagents. The ALD must be able to dispense from to these destination plate formats: 96-well and 384-well. Large maximum volumes are important so that a single well can be used as a source for multiple destination wells. - The ALD must be able to dispense fluids at a minimum 3µL/sec for fast filling of whole assay plates. - The ALD must be able to dispense fluids with in at most 25nL increments for assay miniaturization to up to at least 20µL/well. - The fluid transfer accuracy must be <10% and the fluid transfer precision must be < 8%. - The ALD must include two (2) barcode readers to track source and destination plates barcoded on either one of the short sides. - The ALD software must allow the transfer of any volume of any liquid class, glycerol content and composition from any source well to any destination plate in a single transfer protocol. This feature is required for the use of the ALD to assemble complex molecular biology reactions (Golden Gate DNA assembly, Gibson DNA assembly, qPCR assembly). - In order to rapidly and easily perform dispense protocols, the ALD software must allow to setup a protocol, simulate it and execute it in a single graphical user interface (i.e. window), without the need to save, export and import intermediate files. - In order to automate and expedite dispense protocols that require reagents from different source plates, the ALD software must be able to set up, simulate and execute dispense protocols that can use multiple source plates in a single experiment. - In order to expedite the error recovery process, the ALD software must generate dispenser error log files containing at a minimum the identity of the wells where dispense errors or unintended deviations have occurred. The ALD software must be able to use these dispense error log files to quickly fix the dispense errors in a second dispense protocol. -In order to allow combinatorial dispenses and cherry-picking, the ALD software must allow the use of text file worklists to specify the liquid transfer volumes, the source plates, the source wells, the destination plates and the destination wells. DELIVERY / INSTALLATION: Delivery address, and delivery timeframe: Delivery address: National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Research, Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression (LRBGE)/High-Throughput Imaging Facility (HiTIF) Building 41 41 Library Drive Bethesda, MD 20892-0000 Deliver and install within 6-8 weeks of receipt of order. PAYMENT Payment shall be made in arrears after delivery, installation, inspection and acceptance, and successful completion of the required training stated above. Payment authorization requires submission and approval of invoices to the COR and NIH OFM, in accordance with the payment provisions in the order. Labcyte, Inc. is currently the only known source that makes the a commercial ALD that provides a tip-less Acoustic Liquid Dispenser (ALD) which can be rapidly and easily programmed by HiTIF end-users to execute complex liquid transfer protocols from any source plate well to any destination plate well; and allow 25 nL-size transfers, thus allowing direct dilutions, reduction of total reaction volumes, saving of expensive reagents, and reduced volumes of limiting biological samples. This notice is not a request for competitive quotation. However, if any interested party, especially small businesses, believes it can meet the above requirement, it may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency. The statement of capabilities and any other information furnished must be in writing and must contain material in sufficient detail to allow NCI to determine if the party can perform the requirement. Responses must be received in the contracting office by 11:00AM EDT, on June 27, 2017. All responses and questions must be in writing and faxed (240) 276-5401 or emailed to Catherine Muir, Contracting Officer via electronic mail at muirca@mail.nih.gov. 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. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. No collect calls will be accepted. In order to receive an award, Contractors must be registered and have valid, current Entity Record, including current Representations and Certifications, in the System for Award Management (SAM) through SAM.gov. Reference: N02RC72571-76 on all correspondence.
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