THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE ORDER AND NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS.

 This contract action is for the acquisition of Services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 13.106-l(b). The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Office of Acquisitions (OA) intends to award a single source purchase order to  Thermo Fisher Scientific, 5791 Van Allen Way, Carlsbad, CA 92008, for the acquisition of Gene editing in human pluripotent stem cells.

The purpose of this procurement is to obtain a human pluripotent stem cell line that carries the NES-EGFP reporter, as a first step to develop the system mentioned above. With this cell line, NIEHS will be able to start testing the effect of the environmental compounds on the initial differentiation into the neuroectoderm lineage. In addition, NIEHS will also be able to incorporate additional genomic modifications in this cell line to add reporters in order to monitor further differentiation into the dopaminergic neurons.

Item No.                            Description                                                                   Qty.

A13082              PSC Transfer & Adaptation                                                         1 ea. 

A47366               PSC Cell Characterization, karyotype and pluripotency            1ea.

A35226                Transfection Optimization                                                           1ea.

A13082              Antibiotic Selection Kill Curve                                                       1ea.

 M0401                 Design and Synthesis of IVT gRNA                                           1ea.

                              Design and preparation of Knock-In Donor

                              PSC Stable Pool Generation

                              PSC Stable Cell Line Generation

 A13083               Expansion & Quality Testing, 1 clone, 3 vials                            1ea.

NIEHS propose to establish a novel human pluripotent stem cell (PSC)-based culture model to systematically screen and evaluate environmental chemicals for their impact on neural development. NIEHS will focus on dopaminergic neurons (DA neurons) as they play critical roles in the Parkinson’s Disease (PD). PD is characterized by the loss of DA neurons in the brain and is the second-most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world. Importantly, environmental factors, such as the exposure to chemicals as well as lifestyle choices, significantly modify the risk of PD. For example, PD incidence is much greater in individuals exposed to pesticides or brain trauma, and lower in smokers or caffeine users. NIEHS believe that in vitro human PSC differentiation into the DA neurons can provide a cellular model to quickly identify and characterize environmental compounds that play significant roles in PD development. Further, NIEHS envision that our strategy can be easily adapted to study other cell types and disease models in the future to accelerate environmental health science research.

The applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 325414 "Biological Product (except Diagnostic) Manufacturing" and a size standard of 1250.

NIEHS will solicit and negotiate directly with Thermo Fisher Scientific and no solicitation will be issued. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals or quotations; however, all responsible sources may submit a bid, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency. Offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed requirement based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Interested parties must express their interest and must be submitted in writing via email to [email protected] within five (5) days after the date of publication of this notice. No faxed documents will be accepted. If no responsive statements are received within five (5) days, an award will be made to Thermo Fisher Scientific.