Central Sanitation for Animal Equipment to Sustain Biomedical Research at UCSD

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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.