Enhancement of Mouse Housing Area for Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Maine Medical Center Research Institute is the research arm of the Maine Medical Center. Our mission is to maintain high quality basic and clinical research, use our research capacity to improve the medical treatment of patients, and participate in the training, education, and career development of medical and scientist trainees. Our Animal Facility is AAALAC-accredited, and in April 2005 incorporated a specialized resource of a small animal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facility. This resource is a part of our successful mouse transgenic facility, and has the goals of providing non-invasive phenotype analysis of transgenic mouse strains. Our intent is not only to support existing biomedical research programs at our Institute, but also to offer the MRI facility as a resource to the regional scientific community. One of our Animal Facility program needs is specialized support and housing space to allow for longitudinal MRI studies. The long-term objective of this application is to create a new housing and procedure area outside of the current mouse barrier facility, so we can utilize the MRI to full capacity without increasing the risk to our current research projects involving mice. The specific aims of the renovation project are: Specific Aim 1: Renovate existing rooms within the Animal Facility (G0330, G0331), outside of the barrier, to serve as a high capacity, 185 square foot clean room for mouse housing for longitudinal MRI studies. Specific Aim 2: Renovate an existing conference room (G0328) into a 114 square foot procedure room for the support of MRI studies. Specific Aim 3: Obtain the basic equipment necessary for the establishment of these areas, including racks, cages, and accessories, a changing hood, and microscopy equipment. Achievement of these aims will support our overall biomedical research mission by allowing the full utilization of a unique, highly specialized, and state-of-the-art MRI resource.