NOT-RM-04-003: RFP ANNOUNCEMENT: MOLECULAR LIBRARIES SMALL MOLECULE REPOSITORY

Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS)
NIH... Turning Discovery Into Health^®

RFP ANNOUNCEMENT: MOLECULAR LIBRARIES SMALL MOLECULE REPOSITORY   RFP-RM-04-001

RELEASE DATE:  December 23, 2003

NOTICE:  NOT-RM-04-003

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
 (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/)

PROPOSAL RECEIPT DATE:  March 2, 2004

DESCRIPTION

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is soliciting proposals from 
qualified businesses/organizations to establish, maintain/operate, and replenish 
the Small Molecule Repository.  The Small Molecule Repository will be a component 
of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap Molecular Libraries initiative 
for the creation of an NIH small molecule library and screening centers (for 
additional information on the NIH Roadmap, see http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/).  The 
Small Molecule Repository will offer public sector biomedical researchers access to 
small organic molecules that can be used as chemical probes to study cellular 
pathways in greater depth and will provide new ways to explore the functions of 
major components of the cell in health and disease.  In order to provide these 
benefits, the library of small molecules must contain a sufficient number of 
diverse compounds to be screened for a large number of possible new activities and 
applications.  To build such a library, a contract will be established to acquire, 
maintain, and distribute a collection of approximately 1,000,000 chemically diverse 
small molecules of both known and unknown activities.  An NIH Molecular Libraries 
Coordinating Committee and an external scientific advisory group will help identify 
candidate compounds to be acquired from government, academic, industry and 
commercial sources.  Over time, this collection will be expanded and modified to 
include compounds that are capable of interacting with an increasing number and 
diversity of biomolecular target domains.  The development of such libraries will 
provide probes for studying molecular events, pathways, and networks in biologic 
systems that span the scale from single cells to whole organisms.

Requirements for the Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository include the 
following tasks:

1) Compound Identification and Library Development.  The contractor, in 
coordination with the NIH Molecular Libraries Coordinating Committee and an 
external scientific advisory group, shall identify candidate compounds from 
government, academic, industry and commercial sources, and acquire a collection of 
approximately 1,000,000 compounds meeting criteria to be specified by the 
Government Project Officer (GPO)/Coordinating Committee (i.e., stability, 
solubility, availability of sufficient quantities, ease of re-supply or re-
synthesis, diversity). 

2) Handling, Plating and Distribution.  All compounds shall be bar-coded and 
arrayed in sets suitable for supplying to high-throughput screening (HTS) 
facilities.  The contractor shall have the capability to array compounds into both 
96 and 384 well plates to produce arrays in formats suitable for long term storage 
and distribution.  The contractor shall also have the ability to produce arrays in 
other formats suitable for distribution (i.e., daughter-plates developed from plate 
replication or reformatting into higher density 1536 or 3456 well plates).  
Compound arrays shall be distributed to the Molecular Library Screening Centers and 
other interested HTS facilities.  The contractor shall also provide arrays of 
compounds to investigators on a fee for service basis.

3) Storage.  The contractor shall provide dry storage of compounds as well as 
storage of compounds in solution.  Compounds shall be stored under conditions that 
ensure optimal stability and purity.  The contractor shall provide the necessary 
expertise, equipment, and facilities to store, maintain, and track the compound 
collection inventory.  The contractor shall monitor the stability of compounds in 
the library (e.g., analysis by LC/MS, HPLC, and/or NMR).

4) Re-supply and Re-synthesis.  The contractor shall monitor the compound inventory 
to ensure that sufficient quantities of all compounds (typically between 5 and 
30mg) are available to support screening needs.  As compounds become depleted the 
Contractor shall purchase sufficient quantities of the compound to replenish the 
inventory.  The Contractor shall have the ability to synthesize, at a minimum 
purity of 90%, sufficient quantities of depleted compounds that cannot be re-
purchased.

5) Informatics.  The Contractor shall provide the necessary informatics support to 
track compound inventory and distribution, including maintenance of a compound 
collection inventory database and a shipping and distribution database.  The 
contractor shall create and maintain a repository website, describing the program 
and providing a list of available compound arrays.  The contractor shall also have 
the capability of interfacing any repository informatics systems with other 
Molecular Libraries databases and informatics systems.  

6) Confidentiality.  The contractor may be acquiring and handling some proprietary 
compounds under this contract.  In order to acquire such compounds, the suppliers 
may require their rights to inventions using these materials be fully protected. 
Therefore, the NIMH may request, as specified in FAR 27.303, a deviation for this 
contract from the standard patent rights clause, FAR 52.227-11, Patent Rights   
Retention by the Contractor (Short Form) (June 1997), which if approved would 
restrict the Contractor's rights in subject inventions involving such proprietary 
compounds.  Public comments shall be solicited in the Federal Business 
Opportunities (as a Special Notice) and also in the solicitation for this contract, 
before a deviation is requested.

The NIMH anticipates the award of one (1) contract for a base period of 
approximately 52 months, plus five (5) one-year options.  RFP No. RM-04-0001 will 
be available electronically on or about December 29, 2003.  You can access the RFP 
through the FedBizOpps (URL: http://www.fedbizopps.gov), through the NIH Roadmap 
Grants and Funding Opportunities website (URL: 
http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/grants/index.asp), or through the NIMH website (URL: 
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/grants/indexcon.cfm#RequestforProposal).  Please note that 
NIMH uses the streamlined RFP format that includes only the statement of work, 
deliverables, reporting requirements, any special requirements, mandatory 
qualifications (if any), technical evaluation criteria, and other necessary 
proposal preparation instructions.  All information required for the submission of 
a proposal is contained in or accessible through the streamlined RFP package. 
Response to the RFP will be due on or about March 1, 2004.  NIMH will consider 
proposals submitted by any responsible offeror.  This advertisement does not commit 
the government to award a contract.

Contracting Office Address:

Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Mental Health
Contract Management Branch 
6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8155, MSC 9661  
Bethesda, MD  20892-9661  
Rockville, MD  20852 (for express/courier service)

Point of Contact:

Bruce E. Anderson, Contracting Officer, Voice: (301) 443-2234, Fax: (301) 443-0501  
Email:  [email protected]
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