THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT AND NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION. The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Research Triangle Park, NC intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with Expression Analysis Incorporated, Durham, NC for NextGen sequencing services for Ribonucleic acid (RNA). This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Subpart 13.5, Test Procedures for Certain commercial Items, Simplified Acquisition Procedures (section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996) in conjunction with FAR Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. The FAR as supplemented by the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) will be used to evaluate the offer and award this requirement. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 541380, "Testing Laboratories" with a size standard of $15.0M. The anticipated award will include a 12-month base period (September 4, 2016 through September 3, 2017) with one 1-year option period (September 4, 2017 through September 3, 2018).

The purpose of this acquisition is to provide continued support of NextGen sequencing services for Ribonucleic acid (RNA) in progress that support Intramural Research Division (IRD) research objective's and to further explore how human health and human disease are caused by the interactions of the environment. This study is only a portion of on-going projects for the continuation of experiments started under a current contract (HHSN273201500012I) with Expression Analysis. Failure to use the same sequencing provider for this portion of the experiment will render previous multiple data sets un-interpretable and un-publishable, requiring the Transcriptional Responses to the Environment Group (TREG) to re-do previous experiments with a new vendor at a huge cost to the NIEHS. The libraries created must be performed using the same instrumentation as previous experiments and is not available to the Epigenomics Core Laboratory (ECL), thus, creating ambiguities in the sequence data which will be generated. Also, the data from this project must be provided to the NIEHS via ftp and the data files must be provided in both the. fastq and .cel format. The Contractor is also required to perform the following tasks:

- NextGen Sequencing;
- RNA or DNA extraction;
- DNA library construction;
- Sequence analysis;
- NextGen Sequence Bioinformatics Data Analysis;
- Data output file; and
- Mapping sequence data file

This notice of intent is NOT a request for competitive proposals; however, all responses received within 10 days from the date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract action based upon responses to this notice is solely with the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. If no affirmative responses are received within 10 days of this notice to determine whether a qualified source is more advantageous to the Government, the order will be issued to Expression Analysis. There is no solicitation package available. The Contracting Officer for this requirement is Ms. Onyenauché Washington. All questions or concerns relating to this notice shall be submitted by e-mail to [email protected].

Bid Protests Not Available