Enhancement of Mouse Housing Area for Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging

描述(由申请人提供)： 缅因州医学中心研究所是缅因州医学中心的研究机构。我们的使命是保持高质量的基础和临床研究，利用我们的研究能力改善患者的医疗待遇，并参与医学和科学家实习生的培训、教育和职业发展。我们的动物设施是AAALAC认证的，并于2005年4月整合了小动物磁共振成像(MRI)设施的专业资源。该资源是我们成功的小鼠转基因设施的一部分，其目标是提供转基因小鼠品系的非侵入性表型分析。我们的目的不仅是支持我们研究所现有的生物医学研究项目，而且还将MRI设施作为资源提供给地区科学界。我们的动物设施计划需要专门的支持和住房空间，以便进行纵向核磁共振研究。这项应用的长期目标是在当前的鼠标屏障设施之外创建一个新的住房和程序区，这样我们就可以充分利用MRI，而不会增加我们目前涉及MICE的研究项目的风险。改造工程的具体目标是： 具体目标1：翻新动物设施(G0330，G0331)内屏障外的现有房间，作为一个容量大、185平方英尺的洁净室，用于纵向磁共振研究的小鼠住所。 具体目标2：将现有的会议室(G0328)改造成114平方英尺的程序室，以支持磁共振研究。 具体目标3：获得建立这些区域所需的基本设备，包括机架、笼子和附件、更换罩和显微镜设备。 这些目标的实现将通过允许充分利用独特的、高度专业化的和最先进的核磁共振资源来支持我们的整体生物医学研究任务。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Maine Medical Center Research Institute is the research arm of the Maine Medical Center. Our mission is to maintain high quality basic and clinical research, use our research capacity to improve the medical treatment of patients, and participate in the training, education, and career development of medical and scientist trainees. Our Animal Facility is AAALAC-accredited, and in April 2005 incorporated a specialized resource of a small animal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facility. This resource is a part of our successful mouse transgenic facility, and has the goals of providing non-invasive phenotype analysis of transgenic mouse strains. Our intent is not only to support existing biomedical research programs at our Institute, but also to offer the MRI facility as a resource to the regional scientific community. One of our Animal Facility program needs is specialized support and housing space to allow for longitudinal MRI studies. The long-term objective of this application is to create a new housing and procedure area outside of the current mouse barrier facility, so we can utilize the MRI to full capacity without increasing the risk to our current research projects involving mice. The specific aims of the renovation project are: Specific Aim 1: Renovate existing rooms within the Animal Facility (G0330, G0331), outside of the barrier, to serve as a high capacity, 185 square foot clean room for mouse housing for longitudinal MRI studies. Specific Aim 2: Renovate an existing conference room (G0328) into a 114 square foot procedure room for the support of MRI studies. Specific Aim 3: Obtain the basic equipment necessary for the establishment of these areas, including racks, cages, and accessories, a changing hood, and microscopy equipment. Achievement of these aims will support our overall biomedical research mission by allowing the full utilization of a unique, highly specialized, and state-of-the-art MRI resource.