Central Sanitation for Animal Equipment to Sustain Biomedical Research at UCSD

描述(申请人提供)：加州大学圣迭戈分校体内研究的资金在过去十年中翻了一番，而主要使用的物种(小鼠)在同一时期几乎增加了两倍。通过对笼子和设备进行适当的卫生和消毒而实现的清洁，对于提供允许这些动物健康和相关研究成功的环境仍然至关重要。目前，在加州大学圣迭戈分校的17个研究室复制的卫生设施已成为主要的运营和维护费用，并在这些研究室中占据了相当大的空间。因此，已经开发了一种方法，对加州大学圣地亚哥分校来说是新颖的，在中央独立的卫生设施(CSF)中，笼子和设备将被消毒或消毒，远离研究区间。该提案要求提供资金，用于建造12,092平方英尺的CSF2，以及随后将现有卫生设施(细胞和分子医学西部研究设施的乔治·帕拉德实验室)改造成急需的研究和程序空间的第一阶段。这项建议的具体目标是1)扩大新设计的间隔区的直接研究空间；2)扩大已建立的UCSD间隔区的现有研究计划；3)减少维持健康研究动物所需的自然资源量。加州大学圣迭戈分校的CSF将允许与三个新计划的相关的新研究项目立即扩大20%至30%。一个新的CSF将使18,000平方英尺的空间有资格转变为直接研究的间隔室空间。此外，集中化的笼子卫生活动估计每年可节省1850万加仑水、2420万磅蒸汽和56万千瓦的电力。如果获得资金，这项提议将带来数百个新的工作岗位，并将在整个价值数百万美元的加州大学圣迭戈分校AAALAC认证的动物研究企业中实现好处。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Funding for in-vivo based research at UCSD has doubled over the past decade while the primary species used (mice) has almost tripled during this same time period. Cleanliness achieved from adequate sanitation and sterilization of caging and equipment remains critical to providing environments that allow for the health of these animals and the success of the associated research. Currently, sanitation facilities, duplicated at seventeen UCSD research vivaria, have become a major operating and maintenance expense and occupy a significant amount of space in these vivaria. Therefore, an approach has been developed, novel to UCSD, where caging and equipment will be sanitized or sterilized away from research vivaria in a central stand alone sanitation facility (CSF). This proposal requests funds for construction of a 12,092 ft2 CSF and the subsequent phase one transformation of existing sanitation facilities (the George Palade Laboratories at Cellular and Molecular Medicine West Research Facility) into desperately needed research and procedure space. Specific aims of this proposal are 1) to expand direct research space in newly designed vivaria; 2) to expand existing research programs at established UCSD vivaria, and 3) to decrease the amount of natural resources required to maintain healthy research animals. A UCSD CSF will allow for an immediate twenty to thirty percent expansion of new research programs associated with three newly planned vivaria. A new CSF will additionally make 18,000 ft2 eligible for transformation into direct research vivarium space. Additionally, centralizing cage sanitation activities carries the potential for an estimated annual savings of 18.5 million gallons of water, 24.2 million pounds of steam, and 560,000 kilowatts of electricity. If funded, this proposal will result in hundreds of new jobs and the benefits will be realized across the entire multi-million dollar, AAALAC accredited, UCSD animal research enterprise.