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Contract Opportunity

Research and Development

Description

This is a notice issued on behalf of the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), by the Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations (OLAO), Office of Acquisitions, NIH, DHHS, UNITED STATES.

This is a Small Business Sources Sought Notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. There is no solicitation available at this time.

The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding : (1) the availability and capability of all qualified small business sources who provide Research and Development Services; (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 according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your response to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice.

The NAICS code for this requirement is 541714 - Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology)

Background

One of the goals of research in the Neurobiology Neurodegeneration & Repair Laboratory (NNRL) is to design novel treatment modalities for blinding retinal diseases. As photoreceptor dysfunction or death is the primary cause of vision loss in retinal degeneration, NNRL has been working on discovering drugs that can maintain photoreceptor survival in the process of retinal degeneration.

As part of this goal, NNRL has performed an unbiased high-throughput screening using over 6000 bioactive small molecules using rod photoreceptors from retinal organoids derived from an iPSC line of rd16 mouse, a model of Leber congenital amaurosis. The lead compound was validated using rd16 mouse organoids, CEP290-LCA patient organoids, and rd16 mouse retina in vivo. As the lead compound is considered to attenuate photoreceptor dysfunction or death in general, NNRL wishes to test the application of this compound to other retinal degeneration models.

The Contractor shall:

It is anticipated that the Contractor will prepare animals in good condition in an AAALAC-accredited facility, perform drug administration and the analyses included in the task orders. All test agents including vehicle controls to be analyzed will be supplied by the NNRL, and agent information (i.e., test agent or vehicle) will be masked to the Contractor.

The task will be performed with a single compound at a single dosage, and addition of different compound or dosage requires mutual agreement.

Responses must include the following:

(1) Name and Address of the vendor

(2) Size and type of business

(3) Point of contact with name, title, phone, fax and email

(4) Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) Number

(5) Vendor's capability statement (no more than 5 pages) addressing the draft Statement of work

(6) List of organizations (no more than 3) to whom the same or similar types of services have been previously provided to include contract/order number, short description dollar value, name, and the phone number/email address of the Contracting Officer/Buyer and/or Customer.

ALL INFORMATION SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT MUST BE RECEIVED ON OR BEFORE THE CLOSING DATE OF Friday November 25, 2022, at 4 PM EST.

Please submit Capability Statements through email. All questions and/or comments must be in writing and emailed to Lisa Ingram (Lisa.Ingram@nih.gov). Comments and questions will NOT be answered but will assist in creating a solicitation for this requirement.

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