2- jofoc.docx

VII. Justification for other than Full and Open Competition

The Chromium iX instrument has numerous hardware and software improvements over the legacy Chromium Controller, including improved optical sensors and pressure regulating mechanisms to bolster the quality and consistency of GEM formation in the single cell chip. The Chromium iX instrument now has a temperature controlled tray which helps to reduce transcriptional changes to precious samples during the 18 minute run time, leading to higher quality data generation. Lastly, the new Chromium iX instrument opens up the doors to the newest advancements in single cell technology, namely the new Fixed RNA solution which allows single cell suspensions to be fixed after dissociation and stored until the desired processing time. The introduction of fixation into the single cell workflow not only locks in the biological states of your cells of interest, but also allows for easier batching and processing procedures. All future 10x assays will be developed to be run on the Chromium iX instrument, ensuring access to the newest developments in single cell technologies. The Chromium iX instrument will work with already established data derived from the older onsite Chromium instrument. Changing platforms will eliminate the data sharing.