Epigenetics Sequencing Request NOTICE OF INTENT TO NEGOTIATE A SINGLE-SOURCE CONTRACT Special Notice: FD-2026-362 NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) intends to negotiate and award a purchase order, on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 12.102(a) and 41 USC 1901, with Seqmatic. The anticipated award date is 8/21/2026 The requirement is to procure the following: This requirement is for: Services, non-personal, to provide all labor, equipment and materials (unless otherwise provided herein) necessary to provide whole-genome DNA (30 samples) and epigenetic (60 samples) sequencing services for the provided samples for the Southeast Fisheries Science Center Marine Mammal and Turtle Division in accordance with the statement of work. NO SET ASIDE IS TO BE USED FOR THIS SOLE SOURCE REQUIREMENT. THE APPLICABLE SIZE STANDARD IS NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE 541380 with a Small business size standard of $19M. The applicable Product service code (PSC) is B529 Special Studies/analysis- Scientific Data. This Sole Source Determination is based on NOAAA's requirement that Seqmatic is the only Vendor that provides the required Services. "A well established issue in next-generation sequencing, including both whole genome DNA sequencing and methylation sequencing, is the presence of batch effects. These batch effects are “a pattern of variation due to the merging of data sets produced separately that can confound or mask biological patterns. While usually mitigated by randomization or consistency in methods (e.g., library preparation and sequencing procedure), batch effect represents a major concern for studies carried over several years or across multiple laboratories, as well as for reanalysis of public data sets.” (Dallaire and Mérot 2022). Previous sequencing of Rice's whale samples for whole genomes have been conducted with Seqmatic. It is essential to minimize the potential batch effects by keeping consistent the facility, methods, and equipment upon which this species has been sequenced. This is critical to achieve robust data that are not biased by the sequencing facility and library preparation and therefore to draw accurate biological conclusions from these data. Switching to a new provider for this contract would likely introduce a confounding factor in our analysis that we would not be able to disentangle from a true biological signal, thus jeopardizing the accuracy of conclusions from these analyses. Further, Seqmatic has low input DNA requirements for genomic sequ…