Animal Resources Expansion for Biomedical Research

描述（由申请人提供）：南加州大学已证明其致力于科学研究，旨在了解人类疾病的基础和转化研究，旨在改善人类健康。随着我们在AAALAC认可的动物护理和使用计划中扩大基于动物的研究以实现这些目标，我们的研究量已经增长到对圈养动物（特别是小鼠）的需求已经达到我们现有动物设施的能力。我们已经为使用小鼠模型的生物医学研究提供了大量的年度资金，我们正在尽一切努力保持我们的生物医学研究项目的上升轨迹，其中许多项目将使用小鼠。在我们的两个校区，鼠笼数量近年来急剧增加。此外，我们预计老鼠数量的急剧增加将在未来几年继续下去。因此，继续投资于我们的动物研究设施能力，以容纳小鼠将是必要的，以防止限制未来的研究增长和未来的教师招聘那些需要小鼠模型的研究人员。该项目将利用我们在建设新的生物医学研究实验室大楼和改善现有动物研究设施方面的重大投资。尽管有这些重大投资，我们预计在未来几年我们将需要额外的能力来饲养小鼠。因此，我们请求贵研究所提供老鼠笼和设备，以便在高密度单独通风的机架中容纳我们迅速扩大的老鼠普查。这些架子和笼子将在收到后立即在我们现有的设施中使用，使用这些设备不需要任何改造。该设备将大大提高动物饲养的环境质量，改善工人的安全，并提高这些设施的运营效率。由于降低了笼清洗用水量和减少了使用过的垫料处理，因此使用该笼系统代表了一种绿色和可持续的技术。这些设备将是绝对必要的，以支持我们未来的生物医学研究计划。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Southern California has demonstrated its commitment to scientific research aimed at understanding the foundations of human disease and to translational research aimed at improving human health. As we have expanded animal based research within our AAALAC-accredited animal care and use program to meet these goals, our research volume has grown to the point where the demand for housing animals, particularly mice, has reached the capacity of our existing animal facilities. We already have significant annual funding for biomedical research using mouse models and we are making every effort to maintain an upward trajectory of our biomedical research programs, many of which will use mice. On our two campuses, mouse cage numbers have increased dramatically in recent years. Furthermore, we expect this dramatic increase in mouse census to continue in the coming years. Therefore, continued investment in our animal research facility capacity to house mice will be necessary to prevent constraining future growth in research and future faculty recruitment for those investigators requiring mouse models. This project will leverage our significant investment in the construction of new biomedical research laboratory buildings and in improvements in existing animal research facilities. Despite these significant investments, we expect that we will need additional capacity to house mice in the coming years. For this reason, we are requesting mouse caging and equipment from your institute to house our rapidly expanding mouse census in high density individually ventilated racks. These racks and cages will be used immediately upon receipt in our existing facilities, which will not require any renovation to use this equipment. This equipment will greatly enhance the environmental quality for the animals housed, improve worker safety, and increase operational efficiency of these facilities. The use of this caging system represents a green and sustainable technology due to lowered water usage for cage washing and reduced used bedding disposal. This equipment will be absolutely necessary to support our future biomedical research programs.