Benzinga | Jun 22, 2021 08:08AM EDT

Leidos Wins $13M Contract For CDC Bioinformatics, Computing Support Services

Leidos (NYSE:LDOS), a Fortune 500(r) science and technology leader, was recently awarded a new prime contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide bioinformatics and scientific computing support services. The firm-fixed-price contract was awarded by CDC's Office of Acquisition Services and holds a maximum value of over $13 million for a period of performance of approximately five years if all options are exercised. Work will primarily be performed in Atlanta, Georgia.



"We are thrilled to expand our work with CDC into bioinformatics and high-performance scientific computing," said Liz Porter, Leidos Health Group president. "Our world-class scientific and technical team will help CDC investigate infectious pathogens and generate new discoveries to help prevent future pandemics. These discoveries could lead to transformative advances in public health and Leidos is proud to assist them in this pursuit."

Through this contract, Leidos will assist CDC's Office of Advanced Molecular Detection to expand the agency's capacity for scientific computing and bioinformatics. This includes supporting CDC personnel through information technology and high-performance analytical activities, including genomics, proteomics, high-performance computing and managing extremely large datasets.

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that combines biology, computer science and other specialties to analyze and understand biological data. Bioinformatics data sets, like those associated with DNA and amino acid sequences, can be a terabyte in size or greater. Analyzing this data requires specialized programming and advanced high-performance computing.