Contract · No Set aside used

Combined Sources Sought Notice and Notice of Intent to Award a Sole Source Contract for Automated Inverted Microscope

Agency: COMMERCE, DEPARTMENT OF / NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
Location: Gaithersburg, MD
Amount: Amount not listed
Deadline: Closes in 10 days (Jul 28, 2026)
Posted: Jul 14, 2026
Set-aside: No Set aside used
NAICS code: 334516

What this contract is for

BACKGROUND The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is conducting market research to identify alternative sources that (a) are capable of meeting NIST’s minimum requirements for the following commercial products and commercial services and (b) would be interested in competing for that requirement: The Biophysical and Biomedical Measurement Group within the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division of the Physical Measurements Laboratory will acquire an inverted microscope to advance measurement science for its Organ-on-a-Chip (OoC)/ Microphysiological Systems (MPS) program. Therefore, we require an inverted microscope system that is relatively easy to use, capable of maintaining live cell culture incubation conditions, and compatible with other existing Zeiss microscopes in the lab. The microscope will be used to image biological cells on substrates ranging from microscope slides to multi-well plates to our custom-made OoC/MPS platforms. The project aims to monitor cell behavior under drug and other stimuli to detect changes in cell state. Therefore, continuous automated imaging of cells before, during, and after exposure to different stimuli for hours to days on different substrates, thus the requirement of cell culture incubation components is required. The substrates expected to be used (but not limited to) are: microscope slides, multi-well plates, and our custom-made OoC/MPS platforms, is required. The areas within these substrates to be imaged will vary depending on what is analyzed in and around the cells. The microscope must fulfill a wide range of requirements as outlined above. It most supports various imaging modalities such as brightfield imaging, widefield fluorescence, and phase contrast microscopy with high spatial resolution and fast scan...

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