The Sister Study for Breast Cancer

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a contract under solicitation number NIHES201800001 to provide support services for the Sister Study, an epidemiological study investigating environmental and genetic risk factors for breast cancer. This Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract involves managing and maintaining a cohort of more than 50,000 women to support National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) research. The work is classified under NAICS 541715 for Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology) and PSC code A.

Operational support for this study includes administering research activities and performing directed analyses on data and biological or environmental samples. Key responsibilities involve maintaining high response and retention rates, conducting annual updates on health and vital status, and collecting detailed follow-up data triennially. The contractor is also responsible for acquiring medical records, abstracting and recording data, and creating frameworks to link environmental hypotheses with geographic data systems. Additionally, the scope covers the collection, tracking, and analysis of samples, ensuring data security and integrity, and providing statistical analysis to facilitate collaborative studies.

This award notice was published on August 22, 2018, with Jennifer Smith serving as the point of contact. The project involves various logistical and technical tasks such as keying and editing data, verifying pathological details, and managing the long-term follow-up of the cohort to further the understanding of breast cancer risk factors.