Contract · Federal

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OPPORTUNITY: Portable Slide Staining System for Microscopy (MSC-TOPS-132)

Agency: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION / NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Location: HUNTSVILLE, AL
Amount: Amount not listed
Posted: Aug 10, 2026
Set-aside: None (open competition)
NAICS code: 927110 look up NAICS codes
PSC code: 9999

Timeline

Posted

Aug 10, 2026
Status

Open now

What contracts like this typically pay

No award history yet for this category (NAICS 927110).

What this contract is for

Agency: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION / NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Location: HUNTSVILLE, AL
NAICS: 927110
Scope: Federal

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program solicits inquiries from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology.

License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use.

NASA provides no funding in conjunction with these potential licenses.

THE TECHNOLOGY: Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a handheld slide staining system designed to support medical, research or environmental monitoring.

Although deployed aboard the International Space Station to work in conjunction with NASA’s high-powered handheld microscope in the absence of gravity, the system may be applicable to all known staining procedures for terrestrial field and lab microscopes.

This novel system is comprised of two primary components which are entirely self-contained when assembled.

One component, the dispenser, is designed with an adjustable reagent sponge delivery system that not only serves as a containment unit for fluids, but whose volume allows for multiple uses until the reagents from the dispenser are depleted.

The sponges can be replenished with commercial off-the-shelf reagents.

The second component, the slide staining device, traps and seals the specimen slide which then receives the titrated reagent from the dispenser.

This technology was derived for space-based missions where a specimen’s return to Earth for rapid microscopic analysis would not be viable.

A situation could exist within a spacecraft necessitating a rapid in situ medical diagnosis on a crewmember in determining whether an infection is present, conducting a white blood cell count, determining blood platelet concentration, and monitoring the effects of solar particle events as it applies to hematological disturb...

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