[Insight-developers] VHP Pancreas Project: Souces Sought Notice

[Terry Yoo]

In partnership, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the
National Institute on Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases
(NIDDK), intend to extend the work of the Visible Human Project
(VHP) to finer levels of resolution, combining gross anatomy and
microanatomy by acquiring data of a specimen of an entire human
organ with resolution sufficient to resolve cellular structures.

NIDDK is especially interested in developing new techniques for
studying the distribution of the islets of Langerhans, the insulin
producing cellular clusters in the pancreas, to improve our
understanding of the organization of this complex organ and to
help guide future research in endocrinology and diabetes research.

Together, the NLM and NIDDK expect to secure expert services for
the acquisition of a whole organ, specifically a human pancreas,
physically sectioned at resolutions on the order of 10 microns
(10-6 meters) across the entire organ and the exposed sections
mounted on slides for subsequent staining and photographed with
sufficient resolution to resolve structures at a matching scale
of 10 microns.     As the resultant dataset will be reassembled
into a 3D representation of the specimen from the collection of
slices, the successful contractor(s) will be responsible for
handling the image processing tasks for the initial reconstruction
of the target volume from the photographic slices.

Image capture may be done with a combination of confocal as well
as conventional imaging or involve other techniques.  The contractor
may immobilize or fix the sample and may include fiducial markers,
rulers/measurement-aids, or other alignment tools in the imaged
field to assist with the reconstruction process so long as these
structures do not obscure the anatomy and the immobilization does
not interfere with histological staining processes.  Since a
complete reconstruction of the organ is intended, the successful
contractor should not dissect the specimen into small samples for
sectioning, but rather be prepared to place the entire specimen
on their microtome or other device for acquiring the sectioned
slides.  The successful contractor should minimize the loss
of any slices in the acquisition process.

The award process will be handled through several stages,
beginning with a search for sources in response to an RFI.
Only those sites responding to the RFI will be considered
for the subsequent awards.

Competitive sources will be identified by a Technical
Evaluation Group from among the responders to the
Sources Sought Notice, and a Request for Quotes will be
issued for a feasibility study to them.  One or more
awards for a feasiblity study will be made.

Upon completion of the feasibility study, if the pilot
acquisition projects are successful, an RFP for a contract
for the complete study of the whole organ will be issued
and the full project will be awarded.

At this time, we are requesting interested groups to respond
to the Request for Information (RFI) Sources Sought Notice.
Responses are due April 8, 2005.

For complete information, see the following URL:

http://www2.eps.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OAM/05%2D070%2DKDR/SynopsisR.html


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Terry S. Yoo, Ph.D.
National Library of Medicine          National Institutes of Health
High Performance Computing and Communications       yoo at nlm.nih.gov
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