Collection and Taxonomy of Shallow Water Marine Organisms

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Independently and not as an agent of the US Government, the contractor shall furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, equipment and facilities, not otherwise provided by the Government as needed to collect sufficient quantities of 450-500 marine macro-organisms per year which will yield 10-20 gram samples of extract after processing by a separate extraction facility. From previous studies, this would require the collection of ca 1000 grams, frozen wet weight of a given sample. Specimens of all organisms collected shall be submitted to the Natural Products Repository at the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Frederick, Frederick, MD., for deposition. Up to 20% of the organisms may be provided in quantities from 300 to 500 grams when the collectors judge that [I.] they will provide adequate amounts of organic extract or [II.] the organism is from an unusual taxonomic group and is not abundant. Ecologically sound collection practices must be used. Undertake the complete identification to species level of every sample collected, as soon as possible (normally within 6 months but in the cases of "new to Science" then the taxonomist will proceed as expeditiously as is feasible to identify to species) after collection. Avoid, as far as is possible, duplicate collections of species over the full contract period from the same or close by sites [generally less than 1 kilometer away]. Collections shall include species from as wide a variety of phyla and classes as possible, and should not concentrate on too many species from one class to the exclusion of those from other classes. Collections shall be predominately marine invertebrates with up to approximately 10% of the collection being marine plants. Vertebrates are specifically excluded from the collection. Certain genera and classes shall be given low priority since prior screening has shown their extracts to be either totally inactive or highly toxic. Detailed documentation of the collection is required for the Natural Products Repository. In undertaking these collections, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has committed itself to the conservation of biological diversity, as well as to policies of fair and equitable collaboration and compensation in interacting with the Source Countries participating in the collection programs. Agreements based on the NCI Letter of Collection have been signed with relevant government organizations in many of the source countries participating in the collection program. Each organism is extracted in the Natural Products Extraction Laboratory with a 1:1 mixture of dichloromethane and methanol, and then with water, and the extracts are stored at -200C in the Natural Products Repository. Both these facilities are operated by SAIC at the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center under contract to the NCI. Both extracts are tested in the NCI cancer cell line screen in order to further research in cancer and cancer drug developmnet. The NCI considers the Natural Products Repository as a national resource, and extracts from the Repository are available either in vials or in 96 well plates for distribution to qualified organizations through the Open Repository Program and the Active Repository Program.