AN41--Research Study Services - Postmortem Human Brain Tissue Specimens

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Pre-Solicitation Notice for the notice of intent to award a sole source contract. This is not a solicitation. Regional Procurement Office (RPO) - East intends to negotiate a sole source contract for one (1) year with Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc., located at 44 Holland Avenue, Albany, New York, for the James J. Peters VA Medical Center (JJPVAMC, Bronx) for frozen postmortem brain tissue specimen services. These services are essential to VA Merit award study under Dr. Fatemeh Haghighi, Ph.D.

Background:
The purpose of the contract is to obtain the appropriate post-mortem human white matter brain tissue specimens from suicide decedents and non-psychiatric controls for the VA Merit-funded project entitled Bidirectional validation of loci associated with suicide risk using the Million Veteran Data and postmortem human brain which is awarded to Dr. Fatemeh Haghighi. This study will assess the contribution of inflammatory processes in the brains of suicide decedents at the molecular level, with the goal to identify genetic factors that contribute to inflammation and risk of suicide. The contractor will provide frozen postmortem brain tissue specimens to Dr. Haghighi s laboratory after dissection corresponding to specific brain regions, namely ventral frontal cortex white matter. The dissected tissue specimens from these brain regions will be kept frozen and delivered to Dr. Haghighi s laboratory at the James J Peters Bronx VA to maintain sample integrity.

Contractor Requirements:

Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH) will provide postmortem human brain tissue specimens (with two aliquots per case, one for each of the inflammatory and transcriptional regulatory assays) for a total of 190 cases from the ventral frontal cortex white matter. The samples are from the postmortem brain collection within the Department of Psychiatry and the Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology Division at the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH)/New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) headed by Dr. J. John Mann.
The use of the NYSPI Brain Collection for this project was reviewed and approved as part of the VA Merit award, 1|01BX006069; therefore, the use of the tissue from this collection is essential for the project s conception, submission, and funding award from outset. The Brain Collection specimens are comprised of expertly curated tissue specimens from suicide decedents and matched controls with detailed psychological autopsy data essential for success of this project. This is a unique and valuable brain tissue resource that will allow Dr. Haghighi to determine the role of white matter abnormalities in risk of suicide, which is of huge translational relevance for research into suicide risk and prevention in US Veterans.
Each specimen per case will be up to approximately 150mg in weight to accommodate required downstream experiments. 190 specimens will be provided. This will include 168 unique postmortem cases and account for the dissection of an additional 22 cases, should some cases need to be resampled due to possible experimental failures (e.g., low yields from fluorescent-activated nuclei activation experiments).

Services will include:
Identification of appropriate tissue specimens from the postmortem brain collection
Location of identified specimens
Preparation of dissection area and equipment
Identification and dissection of the appropriate brain region for viable specimens

Since the intent is to procure this on a sole source basis, no solicitation will be posted to SAM.gov Contract Opportunities. The applicable NAICS code is 541714, with a 1000 employee size standard. The PSC is AN41. The authority for this action is FAR 6.302.1-1 Only One Responsible source, and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

Interested persons may contact the Contracting Officer via email at millicent.covert@va.gov regarding this procurement. The determination to conduct a competitive procurement based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Contracting Officer.

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