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

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS The Contractor shall provide a system that meets all technical specifications identified below. All items must be new. Used or remanufactured equipment will not be considered for award. Experimental, prototype, or custom items will not be considered. The use of “gray market” components are not acceptable. All line items shall be shipped in the original manufacturer’s packaging and include all original documentation and software, when applicable. Line Item 001: Description: Microscope Body Quantity: 1 Technical Specifications Inverted microscope body with the following features: One or two side ports to attach cameras Motorized focus drive with minimum step width of 20 nm or better Motorized nose piece to automatically switch objectives Motorized filter turret All optics to allow bright field illumination in transmission AND reflection modes. Binocular tube and eyepieces when required. Motorized condenser capable of phase contrast and DIC microscopy. Focus tracking: Ability to use an infrared light emitting diodes (LED) to independently and continually track microscope focus drift independent of imaging channels. Sample Stage: Motorized X-Y scanning stage with the following features: Travel range: ≥100 mm (X-axis) and ≥100 mm (Y-axis) Resolution: better than 0.5 μm along each axis. Mounting surface: adapt to allow standard microscope slides (25 mm x 75 mm) or multi-well plates. Line Item 002: Description: Microscope Objectives Quantity: Total 4, one each with the specifications below Technical Specifications All objectives shall be optimized for visible light illumination. Line Item 003: Description: Camera Quantity: 1 Technical Specifications Detector: Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) Resolution: > 15 Megapixels Cooling method: forced air; stabilize to 25 °C. Interface: USB 3 with a separate PCIe acquisition interface for fast frame rate readout. Frame rate: fast frame readout > 20 fps. Lens mount: C-mount Exposure Time Range: 0.1 ms to 60 s Hardware Trigger: Trigger-in for exposure time control, trigger-out for exposure time Software: Fully integrated into microscope interface Minimum pixel size: 3 μm x 3 μm or better Spectral Range: 350 nm to 1000 nm Adjustable Signal Amplification: from 1x to up to 16x Line Item 0004: Description: Illumination Sources and Filter Sets Quantity: 1 Technical Specifications Multi-channel light emitting diode (LED) source that replaces traditional mercury vapor sources. Integrated control unit for continuous brightness adjustment, quickly switchable, and stable for long term experiments. Magnification Minimum Numerical Aperture (NA) Minimum Working Distance (WD) Immersion Media 2 or 2.5x 0.06 or higher 9 mm or higher Air 5x 0.06 or higher 9 mm or higher Air 10X 0.45 2 mm or higher Air 20x 0.55 0.55 mm or higher Water* or oil The combination of source and filters must provide flat illumination across channels. Minimum of 4-channel fluorescent light source, but up to 7-channel fluorescent excitation lines are preferred. The preferred 7 channels with excitation filters centered at the following wavelengths are: UV (385 nm) Violet (423 nm) Blue (469 nm) Green (555 nm) Yellow (591 nm) Red (631 nm) Red (735 nm) Filter sets, matching filter cubes and all related accessories to measure commonly used fluorophores including: for UV (385 nm) - DAPI, Alexa 405, Hoechst 33258 and similar dyes; for Violet (423 nm) - eCFP, Lucifer Yellow, Alexa 430 and similar dyes; for Blue (469 nm) - eGFP, Fluo4, FITC and similar dyes; for Green(555 nm) - Cy3, TRITC, DsRed and similar dyes; for Yellow (591 nm) for excitation of mCherry, Alexa 568, mPlum and other similar dyes; for Red (631 nm) - Cy5, Alexa 631, TOTO-3 and similar dyes; and for Far Red (735 nm) for excitation of Cy7 and other similar dyes. Line Item 0005: Description: Software Quantity: 1 Technical Specifications Software with graphical user interface to operate microscope, all imaging modalities, attached cameras, and accessories supplied by the vendor. Image acquisition and processing to allow data capture, storage and post-processing of brightfield and fluorescence images. Ability to export images to standard image formats (e.g., TIFF, JPEG, etc.) Automation of all motorized components to allow time lapse imaging, sequencing and long-term measurements, z-stack, automated focus tracking, and image tiling. High dynamic range imaging with the ability to merge images with different excitation intensities. Ability to script or run microscope automation. Compatibility of data processing software with Zeiss software microscopes. Line Item 0006: Description: Heating/Temperature Control and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Control Units Quantity: 1 each Technical Specifications Heating/Temperature Control Unit to support mammalian cell cultures at 37 °C for days and weeks. CO2 Control Unit to maintain carbon dioxide conditions conventionally used in mammalian cell cultures. Line Item 0007: Description: Workstation Quantity: 1 Technical Specifications Workstation class personal computer with Intel Xeon processor 32 GB RAM or greater Dedicated graphics card (Nvidia or equivalent) with 16 GB memory or greater. A single monitor with a screen measuring 30” or greater diagonally. All control cards necessary to operate microscope hardware. SSD of 2 TB or more Line item 0008: Description: Interchangeability of parts and software We require that the system described above (automated inverted microscope system) be compatible with other existing Zeiss microscopes in the lab to enable exchanging components and analyzing data between microscopes (i.e., software must be compatible with Zeiss software for imaging acquisition and analysis).