HEPATITIS C RECOVERY RESEARCH NETWORK

Release Date:  July 13, 2000

NOTICE:  AI-00-006

RFP AVAILABLE:  RFP NIH-NIAID-DMID-01-16 AI-01-16

RESPONSES DUE:  December 15, 2000

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID)

The Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID), National Institute 
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), 
has a requirement to establish a collaborative network for clinical research on 
recovery from hepatitis C virus infection and disease.

The HC RRN will carry out a scientific plan to:  delineate the factors affecting 
transmission via percutaneous and permucosal exposure in the health-care worker 
population; design and conduct a clinical trial to evaluate the role of early 
therapy in enhancing recovery and improving natural history in the exposed 
health-care worker population; delineate the mechanisms of recovery and disease 
progression in concert with the HC RRN trial; and design and conduct clinical 
trials to evaluate promising new approaches to enhance recovery from infection 
and/or recovery with therapy.  The HC RRN will require the performance of multi-
site epidemiological and clinical research that is linked to multi-disciplinary 
basic research.  The HCRRN must be capable of providing the scientific, 
clinical, technical and administrative expertise and requisite numbers of human 
subjects.

It is the intent of this solicitation to incorporate existing contract and grant 
efforts as well as to broaden the areas of expertise being applied to 
understanding mechanisms of recovery.  To create a complete picture of the 
recovery process, it is necessary that both patient characteristics and 
infection outcome be integrated with multiple basic research approaches focused, 
for example, on virology, immunology and genetics.   The HC RRN will be 
responsible for evaluating and reporting the composite data that defined the 
critical features and components of the recovery process.  In addition to the 
BASE project described above, the HC RRN solicitation includes three OPTIONS to 
design and implement additional clinical trials in acutely infected patients 
and/or HCV chronic carriers in order to understand the basis of recovery and 
explore modalities with promise of enhancing the recovery outcome.  It is 
estimated that approximately 20,950 total direct labor hours would be required 
for the entire five-year period of performance.

The RFP will be available electronically and may be accessed through the NIAID 
Contract Management Branch (CMB) Home Page by linking to the following URL:  
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/cgi-shl/cmb/rfps.cfm.  All responsible sources meeting 
these criteria are encouraged to submit an offer and will be considered by the 
NIAID.  It is anticipated that one (1) incrementally-funded, cost-reimbursement, 
completion type contract, with OPTIONS, will be awarded for a period of five (5) 
years, beginning on/about August 1, 2001.  

Offerors who are unable to access the internet may request a copy by submitting 
a written request by mail, e-mail or by fax to:

Janet M. Mattson
Contracting Officer
CMB, DEA, NIAID
6700-B Rockledge Drive
Room 2230, MSC 7612
Bethesda, MD  20892-7612
Telephone:  301-496-0993 (direct)
301-496-0612 (main office)
Fax:  301-480-5253
E-mail:  jm32u@nih.gov

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