Data Coordinating Centers for Cancer Epidemiology Consortia of Common Cancers

Contracting Office Address Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, 6120 Executive Blvd. EPS Room 6074, Rockville, MD, 20852, UNITED STATES Description The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) plans to support a model Data Coordinating Center (DCC) for Cancer Epidemiology Consortia of Common Cancers. This demonstration project will serve as the foundation to develop best practices for consortia DCC for common cancer outcomes. This acquisition will be processed in accordance with simplified acquisition procedures as stated in FAR Part 13.106-1(b)(1). The North American Industry Classification System code is 541990 and the business size standard is $7.0 million. Only one award will be made as a result of this solicitation. This will be awarded as a firm fixed price type contract. Period of Performance shall be from award through twelve (12) months. It has been determined there are no opportunities to acquire green products or services for this procurement. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) supports national and international research consortia focusing on cancer interdisciplinary and translational research. Currently, EGRP supports approximately 60 cancer consortia. In 2008, the top four common cancers (CC), breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate, accounted for approximately 185,000 deaths or 62% of total cancer deaths in the US (CDC, 2012). A common cancer is defined in 2012 as a cancer with greater than 40,000 cases (NCI, 2012). Currently, twenty-six, or 50% of, EGRP CEC address this burden by tackling scientific questions on the etiology, epidemiology and genetics of these common cancers. Studies of CC require enormous sample sizes, as these cancers are molecularly heterogeneous diseases comprised of multiple subtypes that may have differences in occurrence, interaction with environmental and lifestyle factors, genetic predisposition, clinical outcomes and survival. Each CEC may include multiple member institutions from academia, hospitals, and other research settings. CECs can significantly contribute to CCs research by supporting pooled analyses or meta-analyses with sample sizes that are large enough to achieve significant results, promote spinoff research projects, and yield faster "translation" of results into clinical and public health applications. However, with an array of study locations, collection of data within the CEC is often not standardized, processes may vary, and data items within the same domains may be collected through different questionnaires. Before consortia-wide analysis can begin, efficient and accurate data management needs to be achieved to support pooling and harmonization of heterogeneous data. Therefore, an essential need for the execution of CEC-based consortia research is the development of a state-of-the-art DCC, to collect, harmonize, maintain, clean, secure, and provide access to data collected across the many consortia participating sites. DCCs are currently not widely available for CCs CECs due to lack of established guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and lack of funding. As a consequence, data cleaning, harmonization and pooling are often conducted by consortia in an "ad hoc", study-by-study manner. Development of a model and SOPs for the establishment of DCC for common cancers and development and dissemination of related SOPs will contribute to greatly expedite consortia-related research. The contractor shall perform the following tasks: Collection and storage of tools (i.e. questionnaires, etc.), protocols, designs and processes for data collection from CEC participating sites (descriptive data and meta-data); Quality control and management in a central repository of data collected by the consortium participating investigators/studies; Systematic retrospective and prospective data harmonization across the CEC; Integration of multi-level data (i.e. genomics, epidemiological, biological etc) as applicable; Provision of tailored datasets for collaborative projects supported by the CEC (internal and external investigators); Training of CEC technical personnel and investigators to familiarize them with the functioning and processes of the DCC; Establishment of a web-based query tool to explore summary data and establish feasibility of planned collaborative studies; Maintenance of a web portal to house and manage consortium-related public and semi-public information (publications, ongoing projects, tracking of data use requests, etc.) and Development and publication of guidelines and SOPs for an optimal consortium DCC. Potential offerors may request a copy of the solicitation from Terry Galloway, Contract Specialist via electronic mail at gallowaytl@mail.nih.gov or fax (301) 402-4513. Interested parties shall include the name of company; complete mailing address; point of contacts, phone, fax numbers, and email address; company DUNS number and business size. All questions shall be in writing and may be addressed to the aforementioned individual noted above. No collect calls will be accepted. In order to receive an award, contractors must be registered and have valid certification in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and the Online Representations and Certifications Applications (ORCA) via the SAM.gov website. Reference: RFQ-NCI-120163-TG on all correspondence.