Improving Animal Resources at the Clinical Research Bldg

描述(由申请人提供)： 该计划的总体目标是提高动物护理的质量，并增加宾夕法尼亚大学医学院临床研究大楼(CRB)间隔室的老鼠住房空间。CRB是该学院间隔性研究(12,800 NSF)的第二大组成部分，支持75名教职员工的研究努力，直接用于生物医学研究的费用超过9000万美元。项目目标通过两个紧密相连的具体目标来实现：(1)通过用新的、容量更大的机器替换现有过时的隧道洗碗机和高压灭菌器来改善卫生条件；(2)翻新机架洗涤室(既脏又干净)和高压灭菌器区域的通风，从而排出热量和蒸汽，为设施工作人员提供舒适的工作条件。 宾夕法尼亚大学医学院是美国首屈一指的生物医学研究机构之一。仅NIH在03财年的资金总额就达到3.59亿美元。这是在经历了十年的非凡增长(231%)之后。由于许多当代生物医学研究依赖于啮齿动物系统/模型，因此在同一时期，小鼠动物群体以每年20%的速度增长也就不足为奇了。尽管宾夕法尼亚大学医学院大幅扩展了研究设施，自1990年以来新建了超过35万平方英尺的新研究空间和动物设施，但这些增长跟不上教职员工资助研究的需求。目前CRB的小鼠住房容量为&gt；85%，目前运行处于饱和状态。因此，研究人员被要求限制他们的小鼠群体的大小，这阻碍了研究进展，而且单个实验室的群体通常被安置在几个地点，从而增加了跨设施污染的可能性。我们的提案代表了一项全面的七年计划的近期组成部分，该计划旨在扩大和升级宾夕法尼亚大学医学院的动物隔膜。CRB间隔室的翻新将对学院的研究计划产生以下积极影响： 为学校目前和未来的课程需求提供最先进的动物护理设施，包括遗传学、肥胖和糖尿病、神经生物学行为、神经退行性疾病和移植； 提供更好的实验动物设施，以留住和吸引最优秀的科学家来学校； 为学校保持AAALAC国际认证的能力做出贡献。

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.