Improving Animal Resources at the Clinical Research Bldg

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goals of this program are to increase the quality of animal care and to enhance the quantity of mouse housing space in the Clinical Research Building (CRB) vivarium at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The CRB is the second largest component of the School's vivaria (12,800 NSF), and supports the research efforts of 75 faculty with more than $90 million in direct costs for biomedical research. The project goal is accomplished through two closely linked specific aims: (1) Improve sanitation by replacing the existing, outmoded tunnel cagewasher and autoclave with new, larger capacity machines; and (2) Renovate ventilation of the rack washer rooms (soiled and clean) and the autoclave areas, thereby exhausting heat and steam to provide comfortable working conditions for facility staff. Penn Medicine is one of the nation's premier biomedical research institutions. Funding from the NIH alone totaled $359 million in FY03. This follows a decade of extraordinary growth (231%). As much of contemporary biomedical research is dependent upon rodent systems/models, it is not surprising that the murine animal colony expanded at >20% annually over this same period. Although Penn Medicine has dramatically expanded research facilities, with over 350,000 net square feet of new research space and animal facilities created since 1990, these increases have not kept pace with the funded research demands of the faculty. The current murine housing capacity is >85% in the CRB, which is operationally at saturation. As a result investigators have been required to restrict the size of their murine colony, which impedes research progress, and the colony of an individual lab is often housed in several locations, thereby increasing the probability of cross facility contamination. Our proposal represents the near-term component of a comprehensive seven-year plan to expand and upgrade the animal vivaria at Penn Medicine. Renovation of the CRB vivarium will have the following positive effects on the School's research programs: Provide state-of-the-art animal care facilities for the School's present and future programmatic needs, including Genetics, Obesity and Diabetes, Neurobiological Behavior, Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Transplantation; Provide enhanced laboratory animal facilities to retain and attract the best scientists to the School; Contribute to the School's ability to retain AAALAC, International accreditation.