RODENT BARRIER FACILITY RENOVATIONS

描述（由申请人提供）：

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The general objective of this project is to provide support and care for the use of transgenic, SCID, knockout, immunocompromised and pathogen free mice at Georgetown University. The institution has both short and long term goals to improve animal care and services for the faculty. This grant will purchase equipment, and perform minor renovations for equipment installation, upgrade the existing rodent barrier facility auto clave support area and expand the facility by incorporating 3 new animal rooms. Fourteen basic and clinically applied research laboratories, who conduct research in gene identification, mapping, analysis and regulation; angiogenesis; signaling; immunology and tumor igenesis currently, house mice within the Rodent Barrier Facility. The dramatic increase in pathogen free rodent populations drives the need for expansion of the current barrier facility and equipping this new space with appropriate caging systems to maximize animal housing density and protect animal health. Expansion of the associated barrier autoclave service area provides the required sterilizing capacity for population expansion and improves equipment processing procedures. The use of mobile animal transfer station within animal rooms reduces occupational health risks and injury for personnel and facilitates work flow. The University will purchase one 135 cu. ft. double door autoclave, one clean steam generator and a reverse osmosis system. The grant will purchase twelve ventilated rodent racks and three mobile laminar flow animal transfer stations. The grant will support the required renovations to install this equipment in the existing autoclave service area and animal holding rooms and space expansion. Renovations and support equipment in the Georgetown University Rodent Barrier Facility are essential to meet the research need to house expanding pathogen free rodent populations, safe guard rodent colony health, improve personnel work flow and reduce occupational hazards for animal care personnel through the upgrade of existing facilities.