The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service awarded a purchase order to Michigan State University for $22,771.24 on October 5, 2026, for wheat RNA-seq library sequencing services, with ultimate completion by October 4, 2027.
The order originated from a total small business set-aside solicitation, though Michigan State University, as a public land-grant research institution, is not itself a small business. Work is performed in Raleigh, North Carolina. The contract covers three line items under firm fixed-price terms: DNA library pool quality control for 22 units via Qubit fluorometric quantification and qPCR validation; paired-end high-flow-cell sequencing on Element Bioscience AVITI platform for 2 units at 2 × 150 configuration with minimum 1 billion read pairs and 300 gigabases per yield; and single-end sequencing for 10 units at 1 × 150 configuration with minimum 1 billion reads and 150 gigabases per yield. All sequencing must achieve average base-read quality scores of Q40 or greater, with FASTQ files, FastQC reports, and flow-cell reports delivered via password-protected FTP within 21 calendar days of each sample batch receipt. Dedicated flow-cell and lane allocation exclusively for USDA-prepared libraries is required; multiplexing with non-USDA libraries is prohibited.