SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Immune Epitope and Analysis Resource Program
- Notice Date
- 11/2/2017
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541714
— Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Office of Acquisitions, 5601 Fishers Lane, 3rd Floor, MSC 9821, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20892
- Solicitation Number
- RFP-NIAID-DAIT-NIHAI201700097
- Archive Date
- 12/2/2017
- Point of Contact
- Emily Bannister, Phone: 2406695135, Tom Bahrami, Phone: 2406695147
- E-Mail Address
-
emily.bannister@nih.gov, bahramit@niaid.nih.gov
(emily.bannister@nih.gov, bahramit@niaid.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Introduction The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) supports research related to the basic understanding of microbiology and immunology leading to the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and medical diagnostics for the prevention, treatment, and diagnosis of infectious and immunemediated diseases. The NIAID, has a requirement for continue support of the Immune Epitope and Analysis Resource Program, formerly known as the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Program (IEDB), which provides the research community an easy resource for searching experimental data characterizing antibody and T cell epitopes studied in humans, non-human primates, and other animal species, involved in infectious disease, allergy, autoimmunity, and transplant, and tools to assist in the prediction and analysis of B cell and T cell epitopes. Description The NIAID Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation (DAIT) supports extramural grants and contracts for basic, pre-clinical, and clinical research on immune system development and function, and host immune responses in infectious and immune-mediated disorders (e.g., autoimmunity, allergy/asthma, and transplant rejection). This mission includes support of various reagent facilities, repositories, and databases that provide resources for biomedical researchers. As a part of this continuing effort to support the scientific enterprise, the NIAID announces the renewal of the Immune Epitope and Analysis Resource Program to further develop, populate, and maintain a public resource containing antibody/B cell and T cell epitope information, B cell receptor (BCR/T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire analyses, and epitope prediction and analysis tools for use by the research community worldwide. For this RFP, immune epitopes are defined as molecular structures recognized by specific antigen receptors of the immune system, namely antibodies, BCRs, and TCRs. Immune epitopes involved in infectious and immunemediated diseases and the accompanying biological information will be included in the Immune Epitope and Analysis Resource Program (IEDB). The effectiveness of adaptive immune responses is related to the diverse functions of B and T cells as well as to interactions with cells of the innate immune system. With respect to diversity, B cells secrete antibodies with different functions and T cells differentiate into subsets that lyse infected target cells, secrete inflammatory and regulatory cytokines, and promote powerful antibody responses. Knowledge of antigen specificity is very important in understanding the generation, maintenance and control of adaptive immunity in infection or immune-mediated diseases. In addition, immune epitopes can be difficult to reliably and accurately predict using current epitope prediction algorithms, especially for antibodies and for MHC molecules that have limited ligand binding data. Therefore, development of improved prediction tools will be greatly enhanced by better information on the epitopes recognized by antibodies/BCRs and TCRs/MHC molecules. Such advances would potentially include better ways to interrogate the repertoire of different B and T cell receptors and their relation to epitope binding in humans and other model immune systems. Overall, understanding the nature of immune epitopes recognized by T and B cells will expedite the development of new therapies to prevent and treat infection, organ and tissue transplant rejection, and autoimmune and allergic disorders. In December 2003, the NIAID awarded the original IEDB contract to the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology (N01-AI-40006) and subsequently awarded the successor contract to the same contractor in December 2011 (HHSN272201200010C). The IEDB website, containing immune epitope information and analysis tools, became publicly available in 2005 (www.iedb.org) and currently contains detailed information for over 298,000 unique immune epitopes curated from more than 18,000 journal references or direct submissions from the research community related to infectious and immune-mediated diseases. The Analysis Resource includes the following computational/bioinformatics tools: 1. Epitope prediction tools: a. T cell epitope predictions based on MHC class I or class II binding, or peptide processing, or immunogenicity predictions (http://tools.iedb.org/main/tcell/) b. B cell epitope and structure predictions (http://tools.iedb.org/main/bcell/) 2. Epitope analysis tools (http://tools.iedb.org/main/analysis-tools/): a. Population coverage - calculates the fraction of individuals predicted to respond to a given set of epitopes with known MHC restrictions. b. Conservancy analysis - determines the degree of conservancy of an epitope within a related protein sequence set at different degrees of sequence identity. c. Cluster analysis - groups epitopes into clusters based on a degree of sequence identity. d. Computational methods for mapping mimotopes to protein antigens - provides information on available methods for mimotope mapping, how to search the IEDB for mimotopes, and an example of a mimotope dataset and the results of its mapping, using other publicly available web servers. The system architecture and software design specifications and entity relational diagrams of the current IEDB system are available at the IEDB website: http://help.iedb.org/hc/en-us/articles/114094150691-IEDB-System-Architectureand- Design The main goal of this solicitation is to continue support of the IEDB which provides the research community an easy resource for searching experimental data characterizing antibody and T cell epitopes studied in humans, non-human primates, and other animal species, involved in infectious disease, allergy, autoimmunity, and transplant, and tools to assist in the prediction and analysis of B cell and T cell epitopes. No changes are anticipated to the scope of work from the previous solicitation in terms of the types of immune epitopes to be included in the IEDB. In addition, since this solicitation is a re-competition of an existing public resource, there is no requirement to develop the IEDB and operating system de novo. Offerors can access the specifications for the current IEDB operating system at: http://help.iedb.org/hc/en-us/articles/114094150691-IEDB-System- Architecture-and-Design. Subsequent contractors are expected to use/improve upon the existing IEDB system. Funding under the prior solicitation is NOT required for submission to this current solicitation. Any responsible offeror may submit a proposal which will be considered by the Agency. This RFP will be available electronically on/about 11/20/2017, and may be accessed through FedBizOpps http://www.fedbizopps.gov/. This notice does not commit the Government to award a contract. No collect calls will be accepted. No facsimile transmissions will be accepted. For this solicitation, the NIAID requires proposals to be submitted via two methods: (1) Disc (CD or DVD) and; (2) Online via the NIAID electronic Contract Proposal Submission (eCPS) website. The content of the disc and online proposals must be identical. Submission of proposals by facsimile or e-mail is not acceptable. SOURCE SELECTION INFORMATION‐‐SEE FAR 2.101 and 3.104 For directions on using eCPS, go to the website https://ecps.nih.gov and then click on "How to Submit."
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