Automated Large-Scale Ultra-Low Temperature Biological Sample Archive

Tender description

UK Biobank (UKB) is a registered UK charity and is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants. UKB is responsible for the safe preservation, and scientific exploitation, of a priceless collection of 17 million biological samples. Around 11 million are stored at -80 °C and accessible for approved use by academic and industry researchers. Samples include plasma, serum, buffy coat, extracted DNA, urine and saliva. UKB’s next phase of development will be characterised by increasing demand for biological samples, and a number of new, large-scale, sample collections. This Contract Award Notice relates to a contract for the provision of a new automated large-scale ultra-low temperature biological sample archive (the Archive) with sufficient capacity to accommodate 20 million samples (with expansion to 30 million samples if required by UKB during the contract) and associated support services. Lot 1: UKB sought a supplier that can provide a new Archive (taking responsibility for design, manufacture, installation, testing, commissioning and training), the provision of related IT systems, maintenance and other support services. The Archive will be installed on the ground floor of a new UKB facility in the City of Manchester, UK (the ‘Facility’). Main construction will start in April 2024, and UKB and the Archive supplier will have early access to the ground floor for installation of the Archive in September 2025. Facility practical completion is planned by 2026. The Archive will need to satisfy Factory and Site Acceptance Tests, including Installation Qualification, Operational Qualification and Performance Qualification (as set out in the contract which was provided as part of the procurement documents). The Supplier will have responsibility for the successful integration of the Archive to the Facility. Following satisfaction of Operational Qualification, UKB will load 11 million samples from its existing facility and be responsible for the operation of the Archive. Funding to support the purchase of the Archive and development of the Facility has been agreed by UKRI. The Archive will have sufficient capacity to accommodate 20 million samples (with expansion to 30 million samples if required by UKB during the contract) and design requirements include spatial efficiency, fit with the Facility design, sample storage temperatures and environmental efficiency. The Archive will be electrically cooled to preserve samples at ultra-low temperature and ultra-dry humidity (minus 80 degrees C) with dual redundancy, and with backup cooling provided by a supply of liquid nitrogen. The Archive will use 96-position SBS-format racks, be compatible with UKB’s current and future labware and have resilient robotic automation for picking and returning samples and sufficient throughput to meet UKB’s sample processing requirements (retrievals of up to 500,000+ samples combined with smaller requests, daily loading of new samples, return of retrieved samples after laboratory processing and consolidation (defragmentation) of empty spaces). The Archive will be capable of handling biological samples that have a thin layer of frosting or more significant icing that may obscure barcodes, and raised septum seal bungs. The IT system (all hardware, software and management components required to support the operation and management of the Archive) will be provided by the supplier. The system requirements include the ability to maintain an accurate inventory of labware (and therefore samples) stored at all times; functionality for operation and management of the Archive by UKB laboratory and facilities staff; be highly configurable by UKB (e.g. role-based access to data and functionality; logging; and alerts); and support integration with UKB’s laboratory information and other systems programmatically through, for example, secure API based services. The supplier will provide ongoing support services including on-site engineering support personnel to respond to Archive errors, faults and failures; supply of spares to ensure the Archive remains operational and meets UKB’s requirements, some of which must be stored on-site at UKB’s premises; remote monitoring of the Archive by the supplier to support timely notification to UKB of errors or failures; maintenance and support of the IT system including application of hardware and software patches and updates and preventative maintenance; and initial and ongoing training of UKB personnel. Further details are set out in the Specification which was provided as part of the procurement documents.