SAM_-_Pre-Solicitation__75N94025Q00170_1.pdf

75N94025Q00170

INTRODUCTION

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS TO AWARD A

CONTRACT OR PURCHASE ORDER WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION.

The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), in support of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) intends to award a purchase order without providing for full and open competition to BLACKBOX BIOTECH, INC for Blackbox One 1R-4 Rodent Behavioral Observation System equipment.

BACKGROUND

The mission of the NIAAA Laboratory of Behavioral and Genomic Neuroscience (LBGN) is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the causes of alcoholism and comorbid neuropsychiatric conditions, notably stressor, trauma and anxiety disorders. Our goal is to elucidate the neural basis of these devastating diseases and help identify new directions for their prevention and effective treatment. To this end, we integrate behavioral measures with state-of-the-art methods for monitoring and manipulating neural functions in order to examine how environmental insults shape brain circuits to modify behavior.

To understand the neural basis of cognitive and emotional regulation and how these critical mental processes are mediated by discrete neural circuits our lab needs to utilize a unique technology to track mice behavior with Blackbox One family of in vivo laboratory analytical instruments and associated Palmreader software applications obtained from Blackbox Biotech, which is a fully integrated behavioral tracking technology that enables neuroscientists to obtain unique aspects of freely behaving rodents. This will be used for animal behavior experiments by Holmes lab members at Fishers Lane Animal Center.

JUSTIFICATION

The unique feature of the BlackBox technology lies in its ability to image animal behavior from below, enabling precise assessment of paw contact with the surface—something not captured by traditional side- or top-view setups. This bottom-up perspective allows us to detect subtle, previously uncharacterized features of the animal’s posture and gait, which are highly sensitive indicators of anxiety-related states. These fine-grained behavioral readouts are crucial for our research, as they provide a more nuanced and objective measure of emotional regulation, particularly in response to or circuit-specific manipulations. This will be used for animal behavior experiments by Holmes lab members at Fishers Lane Animal Center as a fully integrated behavioral tracking technology that enables neuroscientists to obtain unique aspects of freely behaving rodents. BlackBox is the only fully integrated behavioral tracking system capable of capturing high-resolution data from freely behaving rodents using a bottom-up imaging approach. This technology is essential to our research because it allows for precise quantification of paw placement, weight distribution, and subtle postural adjustments, behavioral features that are not accessible with traditional top- or side-view systems. These unique aspects provide sensitive and objective markers

PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS

of anxiety-like states and emotional regulation. By enabling us to detect previously unmeasurable aspects of rodent behavior, BlackBox enhances the interpretive power of our experiments, particularly in studies involving circuit-level manipulations. Additionally, this platform is the only commercially available system that offers a bottom-up imaging approach, enabling precise, high-resolution tracking of rodent behavior, including paw contact, weight distribution, micro-movements, and subtle postural shifts during free exploration. These unique features allow us to detect previously inaccessible behavioral markers of anxiety-like states and emotional regulation.

This level of precision is essential to our lab’s mission: to uncover how environmental insults, including stress and trauma, alter brain circuits and behavior, with the ultimate goal of improving prevention and treatment strategies for alcoholism and comorbid neuropsychiatric conditions such as anxiety disorders. By integrating these fine-grained behavioral metrics with advanced circuit manipulation and monitoring techniques, we can more accurately determine how specific neural pathways contribute to maladaptive behavioral responses following trauma or stress.

Without this system, we would be forced to rely on traditional side- or top-view behavioral setups, which cannot capture the nuanced motor and postural data required for our research. This would limit our ability to sensitively detect behavioral phenotypes associated with circuit- or astrocyte-level manipulations and compromise the interpretability of key findings. The absence of these data could delay progress on at least two planned publications and undermine one NIH-funded project investigating circuit-based mechanisms underlying stress-related disorders. Additionally, attempting to approximate these capabilities using non-integrated components would not only increase costs and setup time but introduce technical inconsistencies and data loss risks.

The BLACKBOX One 1R-4 rodent behavioral observation system is a complete and proprietary system package, combining specialized hardware, dedicated software, technical support, and warranty coverage. It is exclusively available from Blackbox Biotech. To our knowledge, no other vendors on the market offer such an integrated, turnkey solution with these capabilities, features and comprehensive support essential for our research needs.

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 334516, Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing, size standard in number of employees 1000

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Circular (FAC) 2025-04 effective 06/11/2025. This acquisition is conducted under the procedures as prescribed in FAR subpart 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures at an amount not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold ($250,000) and FAR Subpart 12- Acquisition of Commercial Items.

STATUTORY AUTHORITY

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of FAR 13.106(b)(1) Soliciting from a single source - For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold.

PLACE OF DELIVERY

NIH/NIAAA

Fishers Lane Animal Facility

5625 FISHERS LANE RM 2S-01A

ROCKVILLE MD 20852

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

We require a full BLACKBOX One 1R-4 rodent behavioral observation system: 4-chamber mouse box and 1 Blackbox One Data Workstation, with 24-month extended warranty, and 12-month access to Palmreader Pro:

Basler Ace ACA2040-90NIR MV camera fully integrated with the BLACKBOX™ 1R PCB, Arduino-based circuitry, and LED illumination rail for immediate use

BLACKBOX One Data Workstation equipped with a powerful Intel i9 CPU, NVIDIA GPU, high-capacity HDD and NVMe SSD RAID arrays optimized for data acquisition and processing;

BLACKBOX™ Data Acquisition Software providing seamless control and synchronization of all hardware components during experiments

BLACKBOX 30cm x 30cm mouse open field apparatus designed specifically for compatibility with the imaging system

24-month parts and performance warranty ensuring system reliability and performance

12-month access to BLACKBOX Palmreader Pro software for data analysis

Delivery by 60 Days After Receipt of Order (ARO)

CLOSING STATEMENT

This synopsis is not a request for competitive proposals. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability in response to this notice and may submit a capability statement, which shall be considered by the agency. Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties’ bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement.

A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement.

All respondents must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. All responses to this notice shall be submitted electronically by 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, on August, 17th, 2025 to jacob.balenson@nih.gov and shall include pre-solicitation # 75N94025Q00170 in the subject line.