Core Rederivation and Barrier Renovation

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Kentucky (UK) requests $6,432,134 to renovate 5,526 sq. ft. on the fourth floor of the Sanders-Brown Center for Aging. The proposed renovation will completely demolish and remove the present aged and obsolete small barrier animal facility. The new facility will provide three critically needed specific core capabilities that are presently not available at UK. A centralized core embryo cryopreservation and embryo transfer laboratory will be constructed and outfitted. This laboratory will provide embryo transfer rederivation of both in-house stock and imported transgenic strains to eliminate pathogenic or commensal organisms potentially altering research results. Additionally this laboratory will provide both sperm and embryo cryopreservation services to UK investigators permitting the long- term storage of unique transgenic strains as an alternative to continual breeding or as a research resource in the event of unanticipated colony loss. This laboratory will be adjacent to a small high- security sterile barrier for initial expansion of rederived strains prior to movement to conventional animal facilities. Finally, a room for gnotobiotic rodent housing will be constructed and outfitted with three flexible film isolators to support the burgeoning need for transgenic strains with defined microbial flora. By locating these three facilities in this single location we will maximally leverage the available support sterilization equipment to provide a set of core services that have been identified by the investigators as a critical infrastructure need.