Bioinformatics resource centers for infectious diseases

Added: Sep 15, 2014 4:26 pm

Contractor shall furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, equipment, and facilities. The Contractor shall deliver to the Government, upon the expiration date of the contract, all source code and object code developed, modified, and/or enhanced under this contract not otherwise provided by the Government as needed to perform the maintenance, expansion, and enhancement National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Biomedical Research Center (NIAID BRC) viral database systems containing integrated data from human pathogens and invertebrate vectors of infectious diseases, including various genomics and metagenomics data, metabolicand biochemical pathways, pathogen-host interactions, population genetics and genomics, anti-microbial drug resistance, insecticide resistance, epidemiology and surveillance, data from clinical studies of infectious diseases, and all relevant metadata.

Added: Mar 28, 2013 3:44 pm        

Introduction

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) supports research related to the basic understanding of microbiology and immunology leading to the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and medical diagnostics for the prevention, treatment, and diagnosis of infectious and immune-mediated diseases.  The NIAID, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, has a requirement to maintain Bioinformatics Resource Centers, which have become the public repository of genomics data generated by NIAID-supported genomics programs and other genomics-related grants and contracts.

Description

This initiative will provide for the continued maintenance, expansion and enhancement of the Bioinformatics Resource Centers (BRCs) program (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/LabsAndResources/resources/dmid/brc/Pages/default.aspx).  The BRCs have provided the scientific community with publicly accessible systems that store, update, integrate and display genome sequence data and its annotation, functional genomics and other "omics" data, and other associated data and information for a large variety of human pathogens and vectors of human pathogens and related microbial species and strains, and allow users to query and analyze this data with user friendly interfaces and computational analyses tools. The BRCs have become the public repository of data generated by NIAID-supported genomics programs, and other grants and contracts.

Through this new solicitation, continued support of bioinformatics infrastructure and data services for each of the following groups of organisms will be provided:

•·         bacterial species

•·         viral families

•·         protozoan species and fungi

•·         invertebrate vectors of human pathogens

Within the groups above, the targeted organisms are those in NIAID's List of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/emerging/Pages/list.aspx), which includes NIAID Category A-C Priority Pathogens, and their phylogenetically, closely related species with special emphasis on influenza, Mycobacteria tuberculosis (TB), and malaria. Invertebrate vectors of human pathogens are also of interest.

Although proposals that are not directed specifically at the targeted organisms are also responsive to this RFP, offerors must be aware that very limited funding is available for those types of projects.

The contractor shall be required to support: 1) maintenance, expansion, and enhancement of the BRC database systems containing integrated data from human pathogens and invertebrate vectors of infectious diseases, including various "omics" and metagenomics data, metabolic and biochemical pathways, pathogen-host interactions, population genetics and genomics, anti-microbial drug resistance, insecticide resistance, epidemiology and surveillance, data from clinical studies of infectious diseases, and all relevant metadata; 2) maintenance, expansion, enhancement, and provision of analysis tools and algorithms as Open Source; 3) maintenance, expansion, and enhancement of user friendly web interfaces for data query, retrieval, and display; 4) provision of bioinformatics services to the scientific community; 5) provision of community outreach activities to expand the user-base and increase the utility of the BRC bioinformatics resources, and 6) interaction with NIAID funded programs.

Upon award, the new contractors will have to ensure an effective transition of the data and software hosted by the incumbent BRCs contractors (see http://www.niaid.nih.gov/LabsAndResources/resources/dmid/brc/Pages/awards.aspx  for the current BRC web sites) into the new BRCs.

It is anticipated that multiple cost reimbursement, Level of Effort type contracts will be awarded for a Base year and four term options with the period of performance beginning on or about 06/13/2014.  It is estimated that fourteen (14) Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs)/2080 work hours per year, including subcontractor and consultant personnel, will be required. If the offeror's work year is less than the 2080 hours, the offerors must understand that the requirement is for the contractor to provide the exact number of hours required per year for their proposal to be considered responsive.  This information is furnished to offerors for information purposes only and is not to be considered restrictive for proposal purposes.

"For this solicitation, the NIAID requires proposals to be submitted in two methods: (1) Disc (CD or DVD), and (2) Online via the NIAID electronic Contract Proposal Submission (eCPS) website. The content of the disc and online proposals must be identical. Submission of proposals by facsimile or e-mail is not acceptable.

For directions on using eCPS, go to the website https://ecps.niaid.nih.gov and then click on "How to Submit."

To submit online using eCPS, offerors must have a valid NIH electronic Research Administration (eRA) Commons account, which provides authentication and serves as a vehicle for secure transmission of documents and communication with the NIAID. The eRA Commons registration process may take up to 4 weeks. For more information, please see http://era.nih.gov/applicants/how-to_steps.cfm#register."

Any responsible offeror may submit a proposal which will be considered by the Agency.  This RFP will be available electronically on/about April 12, 2013, and may be accessed through FedBizOpps http://www.fedbizopps.gov/.  This notice does not commit the Government to award a contract.  No collect calls will be accepted.  No facsimile transmissions will be accepted. See Government-Wide Numbered Note 26.