Developing and Improving Institutional Animal Resources

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Vital biomedical research and integrity of scientific data depend on excellent animal care. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Animal Care and Use Program is committed to the long-term goals of providing and maintaining consistently high quality, healthy animals according to accepted standards at reasonable cost while providing a safe and healthy workplace for personnel. Recent faculty recruits using large animals and continued existing research programs has resulted in a severe large animal housing crisis. The specific aims of this application are to (1) maintain healthy large animals (dogs, nonhuman primates, pigs), by providing appropriate housing for large animals, with access to outdoor exercise areas for dogs; (2) Enrich personnel mental health allowing opportunity for dogs with which they have bonded to exercise outdoors and (3) contain costs for investigators by the renovation/reactivation of 5000 nsf of large animal housing and support space (Cook Springs Large Animal Facility, CSLAF). This additional space will allow long term housing of a dog breeding colony (30-40 dogs) that is a valuable national resource, Canine Blood Disorders and Stem Cell Resource (CBD&SCR). The CBD&SCR provides resources to investigators (UAB and other institutions) studying mechanisms and treatments of hemophilia, anemia, and cyclic hematopoiesis. The accommodation of this colony in the renovated space will allow existing UAB large animal researchers to maintain research schedules. Twenty-one UAB investigators and 10 investigators at other institutions with 61 PHS projects ($22.3 M annual, active) and 19 pending projects ($22.2M) will benefit from the proposed renovation.