Amendment_002.pdf

AMENDMENT No. 002

RFP-NIH-NIAID-DMID-AI-2013169

BIOINFORMATICS RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Solicitation Number: RFP-NIH-NIAID-DMID-AI-2013169

Amendment Number: Two (002)

Amendment Issue Date: August 1, 2013

Proposal Due Date: Thursday, August 22, 2013 3:00 PM EST

(UNCHANGED)

Issued By: Sevag Kasparian Contracting Officer Office of Acquisitions, DEA National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases National Institutes of Health 6700-B Rockledge Drive Room 3212, MSC 7612 Bethesda, MD 20892-7612

Point of Contact: Sevag Kasparian, Contracting Officer Email: Sevag.Kasparian@nih.gov

The purpose of this amendment is as follows:

NOTICE:

Deadline for receipt of Solicitation questions was Monday, July 22, 2013. Further questions will not be considered.

CLARIFICATIONS, QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES regarding this RFP is attached below.

The date specified for receipt of proposals is unchanged at Thursday, August 22, 2013, at 3:00

PM EST.

Offerors must acknowledge receipt of this Amendment by identifying this amendment number and date of the amendment on each copy of the offer submitted. Failure to receive your acknowledgement may result in the rejection of your offer. Except as provided herein, all terms and conditions of the solicitation remain unchanged and in full force and effect.

RFP-NIH-NIAID-DMID-AI-2013169

BIOINFORMATICS RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES

AMENDMENT 001 is revised to read as follows:

Question 1: On page 90 under Uniform Cost Assumptions, it states "Outreach to the Scientific Community: Budget $20,000 per year for promotion of the BRC to the broad scientific community about the bioinformatics services provided by the BRC."

Response: The $20,000 budget includes education and training activities (see Statement of Work A.6.).

AMENDMENT 002

In response to inquiries received, the following clarifications and responses are provided:

Please reference SOW A.2.b and A.3.c for the types of data and types of analysis tools that are under the scope of this SOW. The offeror’s proposal shall prioritize based on the needs of their targeted research community to determine what pathogen organisms and data types to support and what analysis tools/pipelines to develop.

Both pages 52 and 98 should read as follows: Margins must be at least one-inch on all sides.

Question 1: Amendment 1 to the RFP states that “The $20,000 budget includes education and training activities (see Statement of Work A.6.).” Does this mean that any travel proposed for outreach (education and training) should be covered within the $20,000 promotion budget?

Response 1: Yes

Question 2: Is travel to relevant scientific meetings for outreach purposes and for convening workshops permissible under the terms of the RFP?

Response 2: Yes, the contractor must describe how attending this scientific meeting meets the requirements of the SOW. The traveler may not be reimbursed travel funds to simply attend a scientific or any other event. However, a deliverable must be provided (e.g., a speech, presentation, or other specific role) by the Contractor/Subcontractor with final approval through the Contracting Officer.

Question 3: Does the Outreach budget limit of $20,000 include salary support for contractor staff providing outreach services?

Response 3: No

Question 4: Should we budget for an annual SWG meeting at a contractor site?

Response 4: No

Question 5: Should we budget for an annual SWG conference call?

Response 5: Yes

Question 6: Do the IT and security requirements described under section H.10. that refer to “HHS information systems or data” and describe the need for ‘Moderate’ security level requirements for IT systems, apply to all of the computational systems and datasets handled by the BRC, or just to systems that handle data that is confidential, sensitive, protected, or otherwise contain identifiable patient information?

Response 6: It applies to all of the computational systems and datasets handled by the BRC.

Question 7: Section H.10.E.1.a, p25, “Additional NIH requirements” of the RFP states that the information type to be managed includes “Genetic and genomic data. Patient information from clinical samples will be protected.” But section 14.E.1 (Instructions to offerors p63) states that “There will be no access to patient records or personal identifiers”. These mostly duplicated sections on IT security are therefore not consistent regarding the datatypes that are expected to be managed and secured by the contractor. What is NIH’s guidance regarding the types of data that we will be expected to collect and the level of security necessary to apply to the management of that data?

Response 7: It is anticipated that the BRC staff will access genetic and genomic data, clinical data and metadata from human subjects, and electronic health records of human subjects.

Question 8: Regarding RFP pages 52 & 67: Please confirm that the NIH-2043 form is only required in the business proposal and not in the technical proposal. If required in both volumes, would government agree to remove NIH-2043 from the technical proposal page count?

Response 8: The NIH-2043 form is required in the technical proposal for peer review and remains in the page count.

Question 9: Regarding Attachment 1 of 4: Due to the confidential and proprietary information contained in portions of the subcontractor’s business proposals, we are assuming the government will accept a separately marked CD containing the subcontractor’s confidential information and not require submission of that data through eCPS.

Response 9: Yes, NIAID will accept a separately marked CD containing the subcontractor’s proposal.

Question 10: Regarding RFP page 52: Would the Government consider allowing Section 1, appendices, table of content, divider pages and attachments to be outside the page restrictions? Doing so would allow Offerors to provide more substantive content within the 150-page restriction.

Response 10: No.

Question 11: Are the 14 FTE for several contracts or one big one?

Response 11: Up to four BRCs will be awarded. Each BRC will support one of the following groups of organisms:

1) bacterial species;

2) viral families;

3) protozoan species and fungi; and

4) invertebrate vectors of human pathogens.

The level of effort for each BRC award is estimated to be 28,820 direct labor hours for the base period.

Question 12: Based on the RFP language: c. Systems and Infrastructures: Describe plans for maintaining, upgrading, and providing a BRC system infrastructure, including a description of the components of the existing BRC infrastructure and the BRC Pathogen Portal (http://www.pathogenportal.org/) that are to be retained, modified, or replaced.

Are the web site/pipeline to be constructed to be new centers or to support the 5 existing centers already in place? If the latter would we have to partner with the people currently working on the 5 existing centers?

Response 12: Each BRC center shall select one of the four groups of organisms described in the response 11 above and provide an infrastructure, including databases, analysis tools and a website, to support data and information relevant to the selected groups of organisms.

Question 13: The RFP states on page 75, 5.c "Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility, Section 508 Compliance" that "The Section 508 accessibility standards applicable to this solicitation are identified in the Statement of Work/Specification/Performance Work Statement." We were not able to find these standards that are applicable to this solicitation in the SOW.

Response 13: The Section 508 standards applicable to this solicitation can be found on page 75, 5.b, at http://www.section508.gov/ and page 95, 7. provides the evaluation criteria for Section 508 Compliance.

Question 14: In addition, 5.c states that "... offerors must prepare an HHS Section 508 Product Assessment Template..." If an offeror is not a current BRC contract holder, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the offeror to prepare a 508 Product Assessment Template based on either a system that does not yet exist, or for the system in current use by the existing BRC contractor. The offeror could certainly discuss plans for 508 compliance. Will discussion of these plans be sufficient in lieu of a full 508 template?

Response 14: A template needs to be submitted with your proposal. There will be an opportunity for further discussions as identified on Page 95, 7. of the solicitation.

Question 15: Do the 508 plans/assessment belong in the Technical or Business proposal?

Response 15: The 508 plans/assessment belong in the technical proposal.

Question 16: On page 68 the RFP states: "c. Systems and Infrastructures: Describe plans for maintaining, upgrading, and providing a BRC system infrastructure, including a description of the components of the existing BRC infrastructure and the BRC Pathogen Portal (http://www.pathogenportal.org/) that are to be retained, modified, or replaced."

No resources are described elsewhere in the RFP for the additional personnel required to maintain and develop the Pathogen Portal. This contrasts significantly with the previous RFP that stated additional resources could be requested. Is the expectation that retaining, modifying or replacing the Pathogen Portal will be performed solely by the personnel to each BRC (14 FTEs) effectively reducing the resources that one of the centers will have to allocate towards it's targeted organisms, or may additional personnel be requested?

Response 16: The BRCs are not required to continue maintain and develop the existing BRC Pathogen Portal. However, the BRCs are encouraged to assess the functionalities of the BRC Pathogen Portal, and to adopt any components of their own interest for incorporation into their proposed BRC system.

Question 17: Per page 95 of the BRC Solicitation, SECTION M - EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD, Number 7. EVALUATION OF ELECTRONIC AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACCESSIBILITY - SECTION 508, it is acceptable for the proposal not to contain a completed HHS "Section 508 Product Assessment Template" and this can be addressed during discussions?

Response 17: See response 14.

Question 18: Is it acceptable to include direct costs in our proposal that are associated with the purchase of Information Technology equipment?

Response 18: The Government will not purchase equipment under this contract. However, if justification for additional equipment is reasonable, an equipment usage fee may be reimbursed for use of equipment on this contract.