Commerce
Business Daily Announcement
Focused Program Competition 98-08
Tools for DNA Diagnostics
REQUEST
FOR PROPOSALS
AND NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
REQUEST FOR
PROPOSALS AND NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING: The NIST Advanced Technology
Program (ATP) is soliciting proposals under its focused program competition
98-08, Tools for DNA Diagnostics, and announces public meetings (Proposers'
Conferences) for all interested parties. A total estimated $82 million
in first year funding is available for new awards for all of the fiscal
year 1998 ATP competitions (approximately eight to ten). The actual number
of proposals funded under each competition will depend on the quality
of the proposals received and the amount of funding requested in the highest
ranked proposals. Outyear funding beyond the first year is contingent
on the approval of future Congressional appropriations and satisfactory
project performance.
The Tools for DNA
Diagnostics program will promote U.S. economic growth by supporting sustained,
high-risk research and development, which will accelerate the use of DNA
diagnostics in many fields including healthcare. The Tools for DNA Diagnostics
Program will develop low cost, integrated, miniaturized, high throughput,
parallelizable, automated systems that can be used to obtain DNA sequence
information efficiently and accurately and will provide the basis for
a broad spectrum of economical products and applications. The program
will require the talents of engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians,
computer scientists, and molecular biologists. Through the efforts of
these investigators, technological advances in microchemistry, micromachining,
separation technologies, detection systems, microelectronics, and information
technology will be efficiently integrated. The program will determine,
analyze, and store DNA sequences for diagnostic applications, ranging
from healthcare to agriculture to the environment. The innovative new
products that will ultimately result from this R&D in the underlying technology
will be automated, miniaturized whenever possible, high-throughput, accurate,
low cost, and user friendly. Sequencing instruments for studying the effects
of environmental mutagens require a very high degree of sensitivity since
the goals will include searching for rare genetic changes in cell populations.
The business goal is to support development of a new, and very large,
potential market opportunity based on DNA-diagnostic systems. Recent advances
in DNA technology have set the stage for development of systems that will
have a wide variety of commercial applications. Successful accomplishment
of these goals would create new opportunities in many fields such as healthcare,
agriculture, veterinary medicine, environmental monitoring, industrial
bioprocessing, toxicology, and personal identification. The program should
enable industry to deliver DNA diagnostics to a variety of industrial
sectors at a price 10 to 100 times cheaper than those currently available
and reduce the cost of DNA sequencing and resequencing. Proposals will
not be accepted that design, develop or target drugs, agrochemicals, herbicides,
etc. based on genomic information or gene discovery and de novo sequencing
of any DNA fragment or genome.
Only FULL proposals
are being solicited under this focused program competition 98-08. Abbreviated
proposals (pre-proposals) WILL NOT be accepted. The due date for submission
of 98-08 FULL proposals is 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, March 18,
1998. Should the NIST facility be closed on the specified due date,
ATP proposals will be due at 3 p.m. Eastern time on the next business
day that the NIST facility is open. Proposals received after this deadline
WILL NOT be considered. Send proposals to:
Advanced
Technology Program
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Administration Building 101, Rm. A407
Quince Orchard & Clopper Roads
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001
Mark envelope
Focused Program 98-08. Full proposals submitted by facsimile or electronic
mail WILL NOT be accepted.
If a proposer's full
proposal is judged to be of high enough quality to be invited in for an
oral review, ATP reserves the right to submit a list of questions to the
proposer that must be addressed at the oral review. The ATP operates under
program procedures published at Part 295, Title 15, of the Code of Federal
Regulations. The provisions of the 12/15/97 Federal Register notice announcing
the availability of funding for the ATP competitions, are incorporated
by reference in this notice. The ATP proposal Preparation Kit dated December
1997 (containing proposal cover sheets, other required forms, background
material, and instructions for submission of proposals) and the Tools
for DNA Diagnostics 98-08 focused program booklet (containing a paper
describing the scope of this focused program) may be requested by phone:
1-800-ATP-FUND; fax: 301-926-9524 or 301-590-3053; e-mail: atp@nist.gov;
or letter at the address shown above. The Kit is also available on the
ATP World Wide Web site http://www.atp.nist.gov
under the heading Publications. The ATP is mailing the new Kit to all
those individuals whose names are currently on the ATP mailing list. Those
individuals need not contact the ATP to request the new Kit. The 98-08
focused program booklet is also available on ATP web site under the heading
Competitions and printed copies are available upon request from ATP. Public
meetings (Proposers' Conferences) for potential proposers and other interested
parties will be held on the following four dates and nine locations:
- Thursday, January
15, 1998, NIST, Administration Bldg. (101), Green Auditorium, Quince
Orchard & Clopper Roads, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001 and will also be
video teleconferenced to NIST Boulder, Building 1, Main Auditorium,
325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303. For further information on the NIST
Boulder meeting contact Jerry Hendrix, 303-497-5646, E-mail jeryll.hendrix@nist.gov.
In case of severe weather, please call NIST's Facilities Status Line,
Gaithersburg, 301-975-NIST (6478); Boulder, 303-497-3000 for a prerecorded
message of the status of NIST opening. If NIST is closed, the meeting
will be rescheduled;
- Wednesday, January
21, 1998 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1113 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA,
98101-3048, Phone: 800-521-2762; at the Austin Chariot Resort Inn, 7300
North IH 35, Austin, TX 78752-2606, Phone: 800-432-9202; and at the
Adam's Mark Orlando, 1500 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809, Phone:
407-859-1500;
- Friday, January
23, 1998, at The Quality Hotel - Los Angeles Airport, 5249 W. Century
Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045, Phone: 310-645-2200; at the Holiday Inn
O'Hare International, 5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018, Phone:
888-642-7344; and at the Sheraton Bradley Hotel, 1 Bradley International
Airport, Windsor Locks, CT 06096, Phone: 860-627-5311;
- and Thursday,
January 29, 1998, at the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn, 2 Montgomery
Village Avenue, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, Phone: 301-948-8900.
The conference at
each location will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time and end at approximately
2 p.m. except for the January 15 meeting. On that date, to accommodate
a video teleconference, the meeting at NIST will be held from 10 a.m.
to 2:30 p.m. local time and the meeting at NIST Boulder will be held from
8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. local time. These meetings will provide general information
regarding the ATP, tips on preparing good proposals, and will provide
an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. The format and content
of each of the public meetings will be the same with the exception of
the January 29, 1998, meeting which will also include a session in the
afternoon to answer specific questions on the scope, technical, and business
goals of this 98-08 focused program. Multiple locations for the public
meetings are being offered for the convenience of the public. Attendance
at these public meetings is not required. No registration fee will be
charged. To register for a public meeting or for further information,
contact ATP as noted above.
Date created: December
16, 1997
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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