Biotech Center Barrier Improvement Project

描述（由申请人提供）：生物技术中心设施是匹兹堡大学动物项目中几个无病原体改良屏障动物设施之一。该设施目前采用特定的操作程序、病原体监测程序、着装要求、微隔离笼系统、生物安全柜和hepa过滤层流动物转运站来维持屏障。尽管做出了这些努力，生物技术中心的隔离设施仍不是最理想的，因为高压灭菌能力不足以应付工作量，而且目前还没有有效的机制来净化进入隔离设施的物质。为加强预防啮齿动物感染传染病，本署拨款的具体目标是：

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Biotech Center facility is maintained as one of several pathogen-free modified barrier animal facilities in the animal program at the University of Pittsburgh. The facility currently employs specific operating procedures, pathogen surveillance programs, garbing requirements, micro-isolator caging systems, biological safety cabinets, and HEPA-filtered laminar flow animal transfer stations to maintain the barrier. Despite these efforts, the barrier at the Biotech Center is suboptimal because autoclaving capacity is insufficient for the workload and because no efficient mechanism currently exists to decontaminate material moving into the barrier facility. To enhance the prevention of communicable disease in rodents our specific aims for this funding are to: 1. Replace obsolete and undersized sterilizers with a bulk autoclave suitable to meet current needs and future growth in animal care at the facility; 2. Install a new vaporized hydrogen peroxide misting tunnel for decontamination of material to be moved into the barrier facility; and 3. Convert an underutilized office area into a new storage room to replace storage space lost in the renovations to complete aims 1 and 2. The limitations of the existing steam autoclave are threefold: size limitations, age, and serviceability. The existing ethylene oxide sterilizer in Biotech Center is obsolete and became nonfunctional 3 years ago. We propose to replace the existing steam autoclave and the nonfunctional ETO sterilizer with a modern enlarged capacity steam sterilizer equipped with a loading car for increased efficiency. This request is for $289,623 in NCRR-NIH support funds to meet these aims.