THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE ORDER AND NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS. This contract action is for the acquisition of Services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 13.106-l(b). The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Office of Acquisitions (OA) intends to award a single source purchase order to Texas A&M University (TAMU), College Station, Texas, for Tissue Chip Consortium Membership.

The purpose of this acquisition is to obtain a membership in the TAMU Tissue Chip Consortium. The Tissue Chip Consortium is for Human-relevant complex in vitro modeling systems, often referred to as “tissue chips” which is a rapidly developing area of technology that offer great promise for advancing the ability of the National Toxicology Program to be more predictive and responsive to regulators and other stakeholders. As a rapidly developing technology, it is difficult and inefficient for any one organization to gain sufficient experience with the technology to understand how to apply it most effectively. Partnership with other stakeholders and an academic center with the capability to evaluate the functionality and reproducibility of a portfolio of these systems via membership in a tissue chip consortium, allows us to efficiently advance our understanding of this technology and ability to apply it. The application of tissue chips, also termed organ-on-a-chip technologies, is consistent with Theme 1 Goal 6 of the NIEHS strategic plan: Advancing Environmental Health Sciences; Predictive Toxicology: Predictive toxicology remains a priority component of EHS. This approach takes advantage of basic knowledge of biological pathways to build a set of targeted, human-relevant computational, in silico, in vitro, or animal tests to predict adverse effects of a chemical exposure. Predictive toxicology advances include organ-on-a-chip technologies and systems biology platforms, among others.

Description Qty

CLN1: Tissue Chip Consortium Membership 12-month base

Period of Performance:

The anticipated period of performance will be for a twelve (12) month base period with one (1) one-year option periods starting on 1/1/2024 - 12/31/2024.

Base Period: January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024

Option Period 1: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2025

The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 813920, “Professional Organizations” with a business size standard of $16.5M.

NIEHS will solicit and negotiate directly with Texas A&M University and no solicitation will be issued. Interested parties may identify their interest and capability. Award is subject to approval of the Sole Source Justification. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals or quotations; however, an interested party may submit a statement of capabilities if they believe they can meet the above requirement. The statement of capabilities must be submitted in writing and contain sufficient detail to allow the Government to determine if the party can provide the requirement. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed action based upon responses to this notice is solely with the discretion of the Government. All responses must be received within (5) days from the date of publication of this synopsis. Information received will normally be considered for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. If no affirmative responses are received within (5) days of this notice, an award will be made to Texas A&M University. This procurement is to be processed using Simplified Acquisition Procedures. There is no solicitation package available. No faxed documents will be accepted. For any questions regarding this announcement, please contact Tanya Redfearn via email shields3@niehs.nih.gov.