Biotech Center Barrier Improvement Project

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Biotech Center facility is maintained as one of several pathogen-free modified barrier animal facilities in the animal program at the University of Pittsburgh. The facility currently employs specific operating procedures, pathogen surveillance programs, garbing requirements, micro-isolator caging systems, biological safety cabinets, and HEPA-filtered laminar flow animal transfer stations to maintain the barrier. Despite these efforts, the barrier at the Biotech Center is suboptimal because autoclaving capacity is insufficient for the workload and because no efficient mechanism currently exists to decontaminate material moving into the barrier facility. To enhance the prevention of communicable disease in rodents our specific aims for this funding are to: 1. Replace obsolete and undersized sterilizers with a bulk autoclave suitable to meet current needs and future growth in animal care at the facility; 2. Install a new vaporized hydrogen peroxide misting tunnel for decontamination of material to be moved into the barrier facility; and 3. Convert an underutilized office area into a new storage room to replace storage space lost in the renovations to complete aims 1 and 2. The limitations of the existing steam autoclave are threefold: size limitations, age, and serviceability. The existing ethylene oxide sterilizer in Biotech Center is obsolete and became nonfunctional 3 years ago. We propose to replace the existing steam autoclave and the nonfunctional ETO sterilizer with a modern enlarged capacity steam sterilizer equipped with a loading car for increased efficiency. This request is for $289,623 in NCRR-NIH support funds to meet these aims.