The USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, Nebraska, intends to enter into a sole source contract with Illumina, Inc., San Diego, California, for the purchase of iSelect Infinium Hardware Accessories, Software and Training required to support the manual processing of Infinium I and II assays and Multi-sample Infinium Bovine SNP50 Genotyping BeadChip using a Government-owned Illumina BeadStation 500 system. Hardware and software will be used to prepare DNA samples for whole genome amplification, enzymatic digestion of amplified samples, and hybridization using the Infinium Bovine BeadChip to generate 50K SNP genotypes per animal. These items are the accessory equipment required to support manual processing of the Infinium assays for whole-genome genotyping applications using the BeadStation 500 system. This is essential to the success of the project mapping quantitative trait variation for feed efficiency. There is a collaborative agreement in place with Illumina which resulted in the generation of SNP data for the development of the Bovine SNP 50K BeadChip, which enables researchers the ability to generate 50K SNP per animal providing coverage of the whole bovine genome. *Provide Qualification Statement by Close of Business August 10, 2007, if interested in this procurement.

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