This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice (SBSS). This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations.
The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice.
The NHLBI does not intend to award a contract on the basis of responses nor otherwise pay for the preparation of any information submitted. As a result of this SBSS notice, the NHLBI may issue a Request for Quote (RFQ).
THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. However, should such a requirement materialize, no basis for claims against NHLBI shall arise as a result of a response to this Sources Sought notice or the NHLBI's use of such information as either part of our evaluation process or in developing specifications for any subsequent requirement.

The NHLBI is seeking capability statements from all eligible small business concerns [particularly Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB), Woman-owned Small Businesses (WOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Small Businesses, Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB)] under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 333314 with a size standard of 500 Employees.

Based on the responses received from this SOURCES SOUGHT announcement, the proposed acquisition may be solicited as a Total Small Business Set-Aside. All eligible small business concerns responding to this Sources Sought Announcement must have the capabilities to provide the below services upon receipt of order.
Interested parties are expected to review this notice to familiarize yourself with the requirements of this project; failure to do so will be at your firm's own risk.

MISSION/PURPOSE:
The mission of the Probe Development Branch is to apply the tools of small molecule screening and discovery to the development of chemical probe research tools, for use in the study of protein and cell functions, and biological processes relevant to physiology and disease. Probe Development will optimize biochemical, cellular and model organism-based assays submitted by the biomedical research community; perform automated high-throughput screening (HTS); and perform chemistry optimization on confirmed hits to produce chemical probes for dissemination to the research community.

The Probe Development Branch, part of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NCATS requires an assay technology platform that supports biophysical characterization of hit compounds that are of interest with putative protein targets. Among existing technologies, microscale thermophoresis (MST) has recently emerged as a cutting edge platform which utilized a physics principle for the first time for biomolecular interaction studies.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION:
The Microscale Thermophoresis Instruments shall meet the following requirements:
1. Must be able to do carbonilations (the insertion of CO).
2. Must have reusable cartridges.
3. Must have a reaction zone volumeof 0.276 mL (two orders of magnitude smaller than the minimum of 10mL in NFPA 45 requirement).
4. Must comply with with NFPA 45, Annex C part C.5.3 paragraphs (5 and 6). Thus:
a. Limiting the quantities of flammable or reactive chemicals used in or exposed by the experiments.
b. Limiting the quantities of reactants of unknown characteristics to fractional gram amounts until the properties of intermediate and final products are well established.
5. Must internally generate H2 by water electrolysis; only 2mL H2 generated @ 1bar.
6. Must be able to be installed on a bench top or in a standard fume hood.
7. Must NOT need the use of a severely hazardous H2 cylinder.
8. Must be compatible with CatCarts which are a quick, clean, and a simple 100% safe way to handle hydrogenation catalysts.
9. Must have parameter range significantly higher opening up access to chemistries, e.g. reduction of aromatic heterocycles.
10. Must have higher temperature and pressure capability reduces reaction times from days to minutes.
11. Reaction analysis must be made by collecting reaction mixture elution.
12. Must be able to use sealed, preloaded, and disposable catalyst cartridges.
13. Must have easy-to-use touch-screen interface where ALL reaction parameters can be controlled.
14. Must be able to change parameters such as temperature, pressure, and flow rate during the reaction.
15. Must be able to incorporate continuous flow of solvent for unlimited reaction sizes.
16. Must be able to have 60 reaction conditions optimized daily.
17. Must be able to recycle catalyst to be reused with different substrates.
18. Must be able to react to small volumes continuously leading to high reproducibility.
19. Must be able to control the residence time to be fine tune towards the targeted reaction using precise flow rate control.
20. Must be able to reduce the number of steps in a complex synthesis, and reduce hazardous waste generated.
21. Must be able to carry out highly exothermic reactions, such nitro reduction, safely by efficient heat dissipation and short residence time.
22. Capillary Tray

Disclaimer and Important Notes
This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses
to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.

Confidentiality. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).
All capability Statements sent in response to this SOURCES SOUGHT notice must be submitted electronically (via email) to Rashida Ferebee, Contracting Officer, at [email protected] in either MS Word or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), by June 22, 2012, 9:00 AM, EST. All responses must be received by the specified due date and time in order to be considered.

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