Facility renovation to expand mouse barrier space

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The specific aim of this application is to renovate existing animal surgery, support, and conventional animal housing areas to create a rodent barrier facility. The proposed renovation is possible because a new addition (completion date: December, 2004) will replace those functional areas in our existing animal facility. The renovation will provide a 3,555 net assignable square feet barrier facility. This facility will provide sufficient housing space to properly accommodate the rapidly growing populations of mice that support NIH-funded research initiatives of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in areas of cancer, geriatrics, neuroscience, immunology, and infectious disease. The scope of the work includes installation of a bulk pass-through autoclave, construction of an interlock, re-location of employee locker rooms, and removal of walls to optimize room sizes for maximal capacity. The SIUSM animal facility and animal care program has no current outstanding or unresolved deficiencies from USDA inspectors, AAALAC, IACUC facility review reports, or the PHS Animal Welfare Assurance Statement. The primary purpose of the current application is to allow us to appropriately accommodate our rapidly increasing rodent populations and thereby to continue to achieve this exemplary performance record. The most imperative need of our program at present is an expansion of barrier housing space for mice to accommodate our faculty's growing use of genetically engineered, spontaneous, and age-related mouse models of human disease. A 1989 expansion of the DLAM facility included an animal housing suite that was intended for primarily for containment housing. A portion of this area is now used as a barrier area for housing immune-incompetent mice. However, our facility also now maintains large numbers of geriatric mice that cannot be accommodated in the barrier due to space limitations. Thus, our limited barrier space seriously impairs our ability to optimally house adequate numbers of immune-incompetent and aged mice in support of our NIH-funded research programs and to properly protect the health status of mice that are genetically unique, aged (often over two years of age), or used in studies of cancer and immune function. Growing numbers of investigators are now requesting procurement of mice from non-vendor sources. Because the containment-quarantine area is contiguous to the barrier suite, this situation presents a substantial risk to standing populations housed in existing barrier colonies. Separation of these two types of activities is clearly prudent and desirable. In addition, we currently have only four cubicles that can be used for quarantine and containment. This space will not be adequate to support our anticipated continued growth in the areas of infectious disease and toxic challenge and in the need for quarantine of non-vendor rodents.