Flow Cytometer

Added: Feb 14, 2017 6:21 pm This is a SOURCES SOUGHT Notice for market research purposes only in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10 for the upcoming acquisition for the United States Air Force Academy. DO NOT submit a quote or proposal in response to this synopsis. The Commodities and Services Flight, 10th Contracting Squadron (10 CONS), USAF Academy (USAFA), Colorado, seeks information concerning firms interested , to include small business socio-economic categories capable and qualified of providing a Flow Cytometer for Laboratory Operations at the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton Ohio.

This Sources Sought notice shall not be construed as a formal solicitation or as an obligation on the part of 10 CONS to acquire any products or services. Information provided to 10 CONS in response to this posting is strictly voluntary and given with no expectation of compensation, and clearly provided at no cost to the Government. A formal solicitation may be executed and posted separately on Federal Business Opportunities website (www.fbo.gov) at a future date. 10 CONS is interested only in identifying interested and capable contractors for this product and receiving industry feedback to improve the acquisition process as part of market research. This sources sought is issued for determining if there are responsive small business concerns capable of meeting the requirement. Interested vendors must reference their 8(a), HUB Zone, Women-owned, or Service Disabled Veteran status - which must be signed by a company officer with authority to bind the company.

The planned North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 339112, Surgical and Medical Instrument Manufacturing. The small business size standard is 1,000 employees.

Small Business (SB) Set-Aside Determination: 10 CONS reserves the right to determine if a SB set-aside is appropriate including specific socio-economic programs (HUB Zone, Small Business Administration (SBA) subcontractors referred to as "8(a)" contractors eligible under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act (15 USC 637(a)), or SDVO small businesses) based on responses to this notice and other pertinent information gathered by the contracting officer. In order for 10 CONS to make a SB set-aside determination, it is emphasized that SB concerns provide sufficient written information to indicate their capacity and capability to successfully perform and manage all the requirements of this notice.

The proposed contract is anticipated to be a firm fixed price contract for one Flow Cytometer.

Delivery is FOB Destination to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton Ohio.

Comments and/or suggestions on the below salient characteristics are encouraged and can be included in your capabilities package. The minimum Flow Cytometer salient characteristics are:

Requirement

System shall use one dedicated 115-VAC, 50/60-Hz (+/- 10%), 20-A circuit
• System shall be 12.5 A @ 120 V current input
• System shall have no requirement for house vacuum
• System shall have regardless of laser selection, no requirement for house chilling, or external chillers
• System shall have laser beam height of 9 +/- 3 microns, beam width of 65 +/- 7 microns
• System shall have self-contained fluidics cart which holds four 10-L containers
• System shall have two sheath and two waste containers, and three 5-L auxiliary cleaning fluid containers
• System shall have Specialized, self-cleaning mode to allow for flooding of entire sample injection chamber with ethanol
• System shall have plenum reservoir to provide constant pressure to the fluidics system, eliminate need for house vacuum
• System will automatically stop sorting should a clog occur, pull sort tube away from sort area, providing for protection of sorted sample, enhanced safety for operator
• System shall have customized Baker BioProtect IV biosafety cabinet provides Class II protection, adheres to NSF 49 standards
• System shall have capability to sort and harvest cells at high speed based on fluorescent antibody surface markers
• System shall have multiple laser wavelengths (to include 488 nm, 640 nm, 561 nm, 405 nm and 355 nm) to maximize signal detection and separation/sensitivity; 20 parameters: Forward Scatter, Side Scatter, 2 fluorescent detectors off Coherent OBIS 488 nm laser (100mw) plus side scatter, 3 fluorescent detectors off Coherent OBIS 640nm laser (100mw) 4 fluorescent detectors off the Coherent Sapphire 561nm Yellow-Green laser (100mw), 6 fluorescent detectors off the Coherent OBIS 405nm violet laser (100mw) and 3 fluorescent detectors off the 355nm UV laser (60mw).
• System shall have two and four-way sorting capabilities and operate in biological safety cabinet to maintain sterility of cultures being examined
• System shall have Optical filters to detect the following:
- Blue laser: SSC, FITC (505LP; 530/30), PerCP-
Cy5.5 (685LP; 695/40),
- Red laser: APC (670/30), Alexa 700 (685LP; 730/45), APC Cy7 (750LP; 780/60)
- Yellow-Green Laser: PE (586/15), mCherry/PE CF594/PE-Texas Red (595LP; 610/20), PE-Cy5 (635LP;
670/30), PE-Cy7 (750LP; 780/60), Additional filter set: PE-Cy5.5 (690LP; 710/50)
- Violet Laser: BV421/DAPI, Pacific Blue, Horizon V450 (450/50), BV510 (495LP; 525/50), BV 605
(595LP; 610/20), BV 650 (635LP; 670/30), BV711 (695LP; 710/50), BV786 (750LP; 780/60)
- UV Laser: BUV396 (379/28), BUV496 (450LP; 515/30), BUV737 (690LP; 740/35), Additional filter set:
DAPI (410LP; 450/50)

• System shall be bench top, high-speed, cuvette based cell sorter
• System shall have fluorescence sensitivity of 85 molecules of equivalent soluble fluorochrome for FITC, 29 molecules of PE
• System shall have High sensitivity due to combination of gel coupled cuvette, signal reflecting optical path, high performance PMT's
• System shall have quartz cuvette flow cell gel-coupled by refractive index-matching optical gel to the fluorescent objective, resulting in increased sensitivity and resolution
• System shall have signal reflected, rather than transmitted, through collection optics, for minimal signal loss, maximum sensitivity
• System shall have octagon and Trigon arrangement of PMT's for greater access to, and ease of changing of optical filters which increases system flexibility, access to use of new fluorochromes and optical filters easily changed by user
• System shall have Forward Scatter PMT for maximum resolution of small particles and bacteria, down to 0.2 microns
• System shall have all digital electronics
• System shall have zero electronic dead time resulting in higher yield, allowing for sorting to occur at a lower pressure with the same yield as that at a higher pressure. Lower pressures help maintain cell viability and functionality
• System shall have no limitation of inter- and intra-beam compensation
• System shall have automatic compensation set-up through FACSDiVa software
• System shall have CS and T software and beads, for instrument optimization, quality assurance,
Instrument parameter monitoring
• System shall have Accudrop 635 nm red-diode laser for drop-delay calculation;
• System shall have fixed optical assembly of the lasers - no laser alignment ever required by user, allowing system to be multi-user
• System shall have no dedicated operator required
• System shall have custom lasers SORP custom products group at a minimum; 31
different laser choices - including 19 different laser line wavelengths
• System shall have field upgradeable to 7 lasers, 7 beams spots May be expanded up to 10 lasers
• System shall be expandable to 56 parameters/56 PMT for maximum laser/ fluorochrome selection
• System shall have available nozzle sizes 70,85, 100, and 130 microns
• System shall have channel threshold available for any parameter from any laser
• System shall have up to 20 parameter Data Acquisition
• System shall have 262,144 - channel resolution

Operation
Flow cytometry enables rapid analysis of heterogeneous cell populations at the single-cell level. After induction using established protocols, human iPSCs can be harvested using established protocols and analyzed using antibodies against surface markers. Specific antibodies mark the reprogrammed cells (the cells that we want), while the CD13 antibody labels cells that still express markers of the starting fibroblast cell population-the cells that were not successfully reprogrammed (the cells we do not want).

Vendor shall be an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) authorized dealer, authorized distributor or authorized reseller for the proposed equipment/system such that OEM warranty and service are provided and maintained by the OEM. All software licensing, warranty and service associated with the equipment/system shall be in accordance with the OEM terms and conditions.

All potential offerors are reminded, in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.204-7; System for Award Management (SAM), lack of registration in SAM will make an offeror ineligible for contract award. All businesses capable of providing these electronics training systems are invited to respond.

Interested parties shall provide the following information:
a. Company name, address, Cage Code, DUNS Number, NAICS codes, name of point of contact, telephone number and e-mail address;

b. Small business status (service disabled veteran owned small business, HUB Zone, 8(a), minority business enterprise, etc.) if any;

c. Date of business type certification and company's business size;

d. Annual gross revenue, number of full-time employees by direct labor, indirect labor, and administrative/overhead positions;

e. Company's primary source of business (commercial/private or Government sector);

Interested parties may also provide feedback concerning the following:
a. Is this the appropriate NAICS code? If not, please identify which code is appropriate?
b. Are you a manufacturer or reseller?
c. What is your lead-time?
d. Have you ever performed federal government contracts?
e. What are your payment terms?
f. What would you consider "risk" on the contractor's part for this acquisition?
g. If you require different terms and conditions than those normally used by the
Government, what are your commercial terms and conditions? Please feel free to provide a copy of your terms and conditions for this type of work.
h. Do any of the salient characteristics limit competition?
i. Are there any aspects of this requirement which are not consistent with current industry practices?
j. Add any questions specific to the acquisition not included above.

Provide responses not later than 10:00 am Mountain Daylight Time on 24 February 2017. The 10th Contracting Squadron is under no obligation to consider information received after 10:00 am (MDT), 24 February 2017, as part of the formal market research for this acquisition. Submissions shall be limited to fifteen pages, a page is defined as one side of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

Submit all of the above information in sufficient detail for a decision to be made on the availability of interested parties. Proprietary information should be marked "PROPRIETARY INFORMATION." An electronic email response is the accepted method. Failure to submit all information by the submission due date and time will result in a contractor being considered "not interested" in this requirement. Email responses to Jerry B. Smith Contracting Officer at jerry.smith.25@us.af.mil

This is only a Sources Sought Notice and is NOT a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ). No solicitation is being issued at this time, and this notice shall not be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract, nor does it restrict the Government to a particular acquisition approach.

In accordance with FAR Part 52.204-7, contractors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) to be eligible for award. Register at https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/
SAM/#1. Any future information on this acquisition (statement of work, specifications,
Solicitation, etc.) will be posted on www.fbo.gov. It is the responsibility of the prospective
offeror to review this site regularly for updates and/or changes.

For information on Small Business Administration programs, please contact the USAFA Director of Small Business, Bill Wolski at 719-333-4561.

Pursuant to AFFARS Part 5301.9102(c), Mr. James Anderson is appointed as the USAFA Ombudsman. The USAFA Ombudsman contact information is: 10 CONS/CD (Mr. James Anderson), 8110 Industrial Drive, Suite 103, USAF Academy, CO 80840. Telephone Number:
719-333-2865, FAX: 719-333-9018. Email Address: james.anderson.72@us.af.mil.