Invitation to tender for the provision of a Molecular Laboratory Information Management System in the Cancer Molecular Diagnostics laboratory at St James’s Hospital, Dublin 8

The Cancer Molecular Diagnostics laboratory provides a range of molecular diagnostic tests for the diagnosis and management of haematological and solid malignancies. Currently this testing is conducted using standard PCR, real-time PCR and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) based diagnostics. The laboratory currently utilises a number of separate items of equipment and a number of different extraction systems to extract and quantify nucleic acids from a range of samples of varying types. The laboratory also uses a variety of software solutions for data processing with each solution generating different output file formats. The laboratory currently has approximately 40 LIMS users and processes 15,000 samples per annum and it is expected that staffing numbers and annual testing volumes will increase as the requirements for molecular diagnostics continues to grow. Intention of tender The CMD laboratory is seeking to replace its current LIMS (Shire, Genial Genetics). Any system that would replace the current system would need to be futureproofed with regard to expected developments in molecular diagnostics and also possible integrations with molecular genetics, cytogenetics or flow cytometry. The initial installation will be focused on the delivery of a cancer molecular diagnostics service as outlined in the department overview (See section 3.1 above). However, it is intended to further expand this system to cover additional laboratory areas and to interface with additional systems and laboratories.