UIC Animal Facility Improvement Grant

描述（由申请人提供）：伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校的“UIC动物设施改善补助金”的目的是翻新和扩大动物设施，以满足日益增长的需求，动物使用视力相关的研究，这不能容纳该机构的集中动物设施。这一目标将通过翻新和加强眼科和视觉科学系的卫星动物设施来实现，以创造一个进行视觉相关研究所必需的动物饲养环境。具体来说，900平方米。英尺将对Lions of Illinois Eye Research Institute（LIERI）的一个房间进行重建，以满足实验室动物护理和使用指南（Guide）关于饲养啮齿动物的建议。该房间将被分隔成几个隔间，一个用于光敏实验的光控隔间，一个用于建立干眼症动物模型的环境控制隔间，以及一个用于生成氧相关眼病动物模型的缺氧隔间。该部门还将集中现有的视觉研究仪器，用于监测和测量动物饲养区附近地区的活体动物的视觉功能。拟议的改造将确保校园范围内的动物护理计划继续符合指南的建议，并进一步加强住房，护理和兽医监督方面的整体计划的质量，同时创造一个理想的环境，以促进视力研究在UIC。此外，用于视觉研究的中央卫星动物设施将最大限度地减少动物的运输以及实验动物和该机构中央动物设施啮齿动物群中饲养的动物的潜在微生物污染。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of the University of Illinois at Chicago's "UIC Animal Facility Improvement Grant" is to renovate and expand the animal facility to meet the increasing demand of animal use for vision related research, which cannot be accommodated by the institution's centralized animal facility. This objective will be achieved by renovating and enhancing the satellite animal facility in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences to create an animal housing environment essential for performing vision related studies. Specifically, a 900 sq. ft. room in the Lions of Illinois Eye Research Institute (LIERI) will be re-constructed to meet the recommendations of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Guide) for housing rodents. The room will be partitioned into several compartments, a light-controlled compartment for light sensitive experiments, an environmentally controlled compartment for establishing dry-eye disease animal models, and a hypoxia compartment for generating oxygen related eye disease animal models. The department will also centralize existing vision research instrumentation used to monitor and measure visual performance functions in living animals in areas contiguous to the animal holding areas. The proposed renovation will ensure the continued compliance of the campus-wide animal care program with the recommendations of the Guide and further strengthen the quality of the overall program in terms of housing, care and veterinary oversight, while at the same time creating an ideal environment to facilitate vision research at UIC. In addition, a centralized satellite animal facility for vision research will minimize the transportation of animals and potential microbial contamination of both experimental animals and animals maintained in the rodent colonies of the institution's centralized animal facility.