Redacted DnF for OTFOC.pdf

___ Proprietary: A patent, copyright, or proprietary data limits competition. The proprietary data are described as follows:

___ Experimental Continuity: The item(s) must be consistent with prior materials in order to ensure experimental continuity. Describe the conditions that necessitate the use of experimental continuity:

___ Warranty: Purchasing item(s) from another manufacturer/provider would void existing warranty. Provide a brief explanation for the use of this reason and the impact that would occur if the item was purchased from another manufacturer/provider:

___ Direct Replacement: These are “direct replacement” parts/components for existing equipment and no substitutes exist.

__X_ Other reasoning to support a sole-source buy:

The Biological Sciences and Technology Branch, Soldier Effectiveness Directorate (SED), US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (DEVCOM SC) investigates the biological and biotechnological aspects of soldier performance and well-being. This includes research into areas like human performance optimization, injury prevention, and the development of technologies to enhance soldier resilience. CCDC SC is dedicated to using science and technology to ensure America's warfighters are protected, optimized, and lethal.

The team requires a one-time purchase of a single instrument for biological laboratory research projects. Specifically, a multiplex assay, high-throughput instrument is meant to replace time-consuming, cumbersome, and expensive ELISA assays. ELISA assays generally take 3-4 hours per analyte (molecule), whereas a multiplex system can sun up to 80 analytes (molecules) at once. In addition, the system is capable of running protein and RNA assays from the same sample (using separate kits).

, a US Army researcher with over 25 years of experience in Biochemistry and Molecular Nutrition, led the market research that was conducted between May 2025 and July 2025. determined that the Luminex product is the only one of its kind that uses magnetic bead-based technology and has been the industry leader in meeting all those needs for analyzing small proteins (peptides), cytokines, chemokines, with additional capability for analyzing RNA from the same sample. They are known for their xMAP technology, a multiplexing platform that enables the simultaneous analysis of multiple bioassays in a single sample. Luminex's core technology, xMAP, allows for the analysis of up to 500 bioassays in a single sample, enhancing efficiency and throughput.

In the interests of efficiency and cost reasonableness, has determined that purchasing the Luminex product allows biologists and immunologists to rely on methods that have the specificity of ELISA, but higher throughput, at a reasonable cost and difficulty. In addition, current research protocols direct the use of multiplex assays.

This product is available in two versions: one that is meant for Research Labs and another that is meant for Diagnostic settings. The government requires the Research Use Only version.