Intent to Sole Source - Medical/Scientific Instruments for the Department of Transfusion Medicine, NIH Clinical Center

This is a Notice of Intent, not a request for proposal. The National Institute of Health, Clinical Center (NIH-CC) intends to negotiate on an other than full and open competition basis with the following vendor: Fisher Scientific. Acquisition Description: The NIH Clinical Center, Department of Transfusion Medicine (DTM), Infectious Diseases Section requires acquisition of a 1) Real-Time PCR System, 2) an Automated Nucleic Acid Extractor and 3) a microvolume spectrophotometer to support clinical research and the development, optimization, and validation of diagnostic assays for hepatitis viruses and other transfusion-transmitted pathogens. The required system must support generation of high-quality quantification data from clinical specimens, including viral RNA/DNA and host-derived nucleic acids. The instrument must enable applications such as targeted genome amplification, work with a wider dynamic detection range, support the library prep for viral genome sequencing, and assay development workflows necessary for evaluating test performance and refining diagnostic methods prior to implementation in a clinical testing environment. The system must meet the following functional and operational requirements: High data accuracy and reproducibility to ensure reliable detection of viral variants and evaluation of assay performance; Low- to moderate-throughput capability appropriate for assay development, pilot studies, and validation activities involving smaller sample sets; Rapid turnaround times to support iterative testing and optimization of clinical assays; Flexible run configurations that allow efficient processing of varying sample volumes without excess capacity; Cost-efficient operation , including the ability to minimize per-run and per-sample costs for pathogen detection; Integrated and streamlined workflows , including nucleic acid extraction, amplification, quantification and data analysis within a platform from the same vendor to reduce complexity and variab