Expanding capacity of the National Swine Resource and Research Center

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Project Summary The National Swine Resource and Research Center (NSRRC) has been the only NIH-funded swine resource center to develop and supply swine models for biomedical research. Swine share anatomic and physiologic characteristics with humans that make them the optimal model for the study of many human diseases, e.g., cardiovascular disease, optic diseases, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, and specific infectious diseases. The anatomy and physiology of pig organs also makes them likely candidates for xenotransplantation donors. Thus, increasingly, pigs are being used as models for human disease. With a sequenced pig genome, major advances have been made in developing swine-specific reagents and creating swine models carrying targeted genetic modifications. With these tools in place, pig models are making unprecedented contributions toward unraveling the molecular basis of human disease and developing new therapeutic strategies. With the interest in swine models, the NSRRC is responsible for supplying swine models for research projects sponsored by over ten different NIH institutes. Since its foundation in 2006, activity of NSRRC has continued to increase. Housing capacity of NSRRC, on the other hand, had few improvements throughout the years and no expansion has been made to the Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) swine facility. The limitation is now preventing development of additional models or suppling animals to a diverse group of researchers. The center can’t meet the demand to properly serve as the national resource of swine models. To resolve this limitation and excel as the main swine resource center in the U.S., we propose to increase the housing capacity of NSRRC. We propose to construct a building consisting of 8,420 gross square feet (GSF) of swine housing area connected to the existing NSRRC SPF swine facility to enhance swine housing capacity of NSRRC. Original construction of the NSRRC anticipated expansion of the center and infrastructure (water, electricity, and sewer) sufficient for this proposed expansion was installed. Utilizing the existing infrastructure will allow us to acquire more swine housing space within the budget. In addition, the proposed animal housing area will enable us to maximize the use of penning in the existing facility as the enhanced space will allow us to place all swine models under a suitable penning system. The NSRRC has been at the forefront of providing swine models to the biomedical community. Our activities have been significantly expanded since inception and swine housing is now a critical limitation for us to serve the biomedical community. The space restriction hinders us from rapidly breeding and establishing swine models to accommodate demands from the NIH community. The proposed construction is not limited to just additional animal housing but will permit more efficient use of the existing space, permitting the NSRRC to explore application of new swine models in various research fields and extend our training activity on the use of swine models.