DNA sequencing services

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering Research and Development Center – Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) in Champaign, IL has a requirement for services to derive DNA sequence data for a suite of environmental DNA projects that survey for endangered, at-risk and invasive species and whole community biodiversity on military and related lands.

ERDC-CERL intends to award a purchase order on a sole source basis to University of Illinois in accordance with FAR 13.106-1(b)(1).

It was determined that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, specifically the team at the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center (Keck Center) is the only source capable of providing a combination of all of the following:

1) The specific DNA sequencing platform needed for this effort

2) extremely fast turn-around time (<2 weeks);

3) local to the CERL laboratory, thus do not require shipping expensive and irreplaceable samples

4) planning-level guidance to determine optimal sequencing strategies;

5) data-interpretation and troubleshooting solutions; and

6) data consistency across many sequencing runs.

The specific DNA sequencing platform required is the Illumina Novaseq 6000.  This platform has been used previously in this CERL research program, and the results obtained from these runs must be consistent for data comparison and analysis purposes.  The timeframe and locality requirements stem from the sensitivity of the environmental samples.  No other vendors with the capabilities listed above exist in a 3-4 hour driving distance from Champaign, IL, which would allow for hand delivery of samples.  The samples are sensitive to both temperature and light, and are irreplaceable.  Therefore, shipping them is undesirable.  Finally, the University of Illinois has  intimate knowledge the methodology/protocol for DNA library preparation, as demonstrated on prior efforts, and thus they are uniquely positioned to offer us the most optimal and consistent sequencing products, data interpretation, and troubleshooting solutions.

This is not a small business set aside. 

This Notice of Intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however interested parties may identify their interests and capability to respond to this requirement. Any interested party that believes they can fulfill this requirement should submit a capability statement to be reviewed. All submissions will be considered, however there is no guarantee that submissions in response to this notice will in any way alter the Government’s acquisition strategy.

Please provide responses to this notice no later than the Response time listed above in this notice, to:

CERL-CT-QUOTES@usace.army.mil

Telephone responses will not be accepted.

Responses to this notice will not be considered as a response to any solicitation, a request to be added to a prospective offers list, or to receive a copy of any solicitation.  A determination by the Government not to compete the contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.