A market survey is being conducted to determine if there are adequate Small Business, SBA-certified HUBZone, SBA-certified 8(a), Women-Owned, or Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) contractors available for a proposed project who meet the specific criteria outlined below. This is not a solicitation Announcement or Request for Proposal. It does not constitute any commitment by the Government. No award will result from this notice. The purpose is to conduct market research to gain knowledge of potentially qualified sources. Responses to this Sources Sought Notice will be used by the Government to make an appropriate acquisition decision. The USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) will not award a contract on the basis of responses or pay for the preparation of any information submitted. Respondents will not be notified of the results of this notice. After completing an analysis of the responses, the Government will determine whether to limit competition to 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, Women-Owned, or other small business firms, or to proceed with issuing an unrestricted solicitation, inviting full and open competition.

Requirements:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service Western Regional Research Center– 800 Buchanan Street, Albany, CA has issued this sources sought announcement in order to determine if there are existing businesses sources capable of providing RNA sequencing.  The complete requirement is:

This RNA sequencing project will generate a minimum of 20 million high quality sequence read pairs per sample from 144 samples consisting of 500 ng total RNA extracted from switchgrass leaves.

The samples shall be quality tested to ensure that they have an A260/280 ratio of approximately 1.8-2.2 and are over 50 ng RNA ul-1

The samples will be used for PolyA selection of mRNA and subsequent library construction for acquiring sequence on an Illumina HiSeq instrument using a single barcode for multiplexing and 2x150bp reads.

The post-analysed data will be provided back in fastq format with barcodes and adapters trimmed and with samples deconvoluted.

The time from sample submission to data availability will be no greater than  35 days.

The sequences will be of such quality that greater than 80% of bases shall have at least a quality of Q30.

Companies who have the experience, as well as an interest in doing business with ARS, should submit a Capabilities Statement which, for this notice, is not expected to be a proposal, but rather short statements regarding the company’s ability to demonstrate their expertise and experience in relation to the areas specified in this notice. Companies should also indicate whether they are a Small Business, SBA-certified HUBZone, SBA-certified 8(a), SDVOSB, or Women-Owned Small Business. Responses should be submitted by 07/30/2021 BY 5:00pm EST to the attention of Mr. Paige Francis at [email protected].