Central Sanitation for Animal Equipment to Sustain Biomedical Research at UCSD

描述（由申请人提供）：加州大学圣地亚哥分校的体内研究资金在过去十年中翻了一番，而主要使用的物种（小鼠）在同一时期几乎增加了两倍。通过对笼子和设备进行适当的卫生和消毒实现的清洁，对于提供有利于这些动物健康的环境和相关研究的成功仍然至关重要。目前，在17个UCSD研究室内复制的卫生设施已成为主要的运营和维护费用，并占据了这些研究室内的大量空间。因此，加州大学圣地亚哥分校开发了一种新颖的方法，将笼子和设备在中央独立卫生设施（CSF）中进行消毒或灭菌，以远离研究动物。该提案要求为建设12092平方英尺的CSF和随后的第一阶段改造现有卫生设施（细胞和分子医学西部研究设施的George Palade实验室）提供资金，以满足迫切需要的研究和程序空间。该提案的具体目标是：1)扩大新设计的活体的直接研究空间；2)在加州大学圣地亚哥分校已建立的动物园内扩大现有的研究项目，3)减少维持健康研究动物所需的自然资源。加州大学圣地亚哥分校的CSF将允许与三个新计划的试管相关的新研究项目立即扩大20%到30%。另外，一个新的CSF将使18,000平方英尺有资格转化为直接研究动物空间。此外，集中笼子卫生活动每年可能节省1850万加仑的水、2420万磅的蒸汽和56万千瓦的电力。如果获得资助，该提案将带来数百个新的工作岗位，并将在整个数百万美元的AAALAC认证的UCSD动物研究企业中实现收益。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Funding for in-vivo based research at UCSD has doubled over the past decade while the primary species used (mice) has almost tripled during this same time period. Cleanliness achieved from adequate sanitation and sterilization of caging and equipment remains critical to providing environments that allow for the health of these animals and the success of the associated research. Currently, sanitation facilities, duplicated at seventeen UCSD research vivaria, have become a major operating and maintenance expense and occupy a significant amount of space in these vivaria. Therefore, an approach has been developed, novel to UCSD, where caging and equipment will be sanitized or sterilized away from research vivaria in a central stand alone sanitation facility (CSF). This proposal requests funds for construction of a 12,092 ft2 CSF and the subsequent phase one transformation of existing sanitation facilities (the George Palade Laboratories at Cellular and Molecular Medicine West Research Facility) into desperately needed research and procedure space. Specific aims of this proposal are 1) to expand direct research space in newly designed vivaria; 2) to expand existing research programs at established UCSD vivaria, and 3) to decrease the amount of natural resources required to maintain healthy research animals. A UCSD CSF will allow for an immediate twenty to thirty percent expansion of new research programs associated with three newly planned vivaria. A new CSF will additionally make 18,000 ft2 eligible for transformation into direct research vivarium space. Additionally, centralizing cage sanitation activities carries the potential for an estimated annual savings of 18.5 million gallons of water, 24.2 million pounds of steam, and 560,000 kilowatts of electricity. If funded, this proposal will result in hundreds of new jobs and the benefits will be realized across the entire multi-million dollar, AAALAC accredited, UCSD animal research enterprise.