The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is seeking MANUFACTURERS of centrifuges.

This is NOT yet a solicitation. APHIS is conducting market research only to assist in determining acquisition strategy. Interested MANUFACTURERS should send a statement of capabilities detailing your ability to manufacture the boxes according to the specifications via email to [email protected].

The USDA APHIS is seeking small businesses capable of manufacturing centrifuges and rotors with the following characteristics (USDA APHIS is also interested in accepting information from any small business manufacturer of centrifuges):

The centrifuge must be able to accommodate rotors with the capacities up to 4 liters. The centrifuge must be capable of spinning tubes and bottles varying in size from 1.5 ml to 1,000 ml.

The rotors must accommodate 40 count cardboard boxes (4 boxes to a centrifuge). The box dimensions are 2 3/16" wide x 6 11/16 inches long x 4" tall.

The centrifuge must have the capability to spin 32 standard microplates with biocontainment. The centrifuge must have the capability of spinning 96 15-mi tissue culture tubes per run.

The centrifuge must be capable of generating a maximum of 6,960 x g in a swinging bucket rotor.

The centrifuge must be able to run a "deepwell" swinging bucket rotor, capable of spinning tall microplate configurations, up to 85 mm in height (e.g. filtration devices such as the QIAmp 96 well plate) at 5,890 x g. The filtration devices and plates must be contained during the spinning operation, in an approved biocontainment environment.

A wide range of independently tested biocontainment rotors and/or bucket/cover assemblies must be available.

The centrifuge must be capable of performing sensitive percol and ficoll gradient separations as well as blood separations.

The centrifuge must minimize required maintenance by containing a brushless, induction drive motor, having surfaces that are easily cleaned and disinfected, and utilize a 4-place swinging bucket rotor with specially coated trunnions that require no grease.

For ease of use, and to eliminate/minimize the effects of user error, the centrifuge must employ automatic rotor recognition, and dynamic electronic imbalance recognition.

For the multi-user needs, the operation controls should be easy to use with both "set" and "actual" run conditions easily accessible during operation.

The centrifuge must also be capable of set-up using RPM or RCF values.

For more accurate run control, the instrument must have a digital display for speed, time and temperature indicators.

The instrument must be manufactured under registered IEC 1010.