Laboratory Animal Resource Improvements- Utah State University

 描述(由申请人提供)：犹他州州立大学一个3847平方英尺的动物生物安全3级实验室为NIH资助的研究人员提供病毒疾病和抗病毒治疗研究。由于支撑实验室的唯一直通式高压灭菌器一再出现故障，实验室受到阻碍，并面临关闭的威胁。为了更好地满足研究人员的需要，并将高压灭菌器故障对当前和未来病毒疾病研究的影响降至最低，我们建议安装额外的直通式灭菌器。这第二个高压灭菌器将增加去污能力，更重要的是，提供冗余以确保实验室连续运行。这反过来将通过确保研究动物不需要被不必要的安乐死，并通过推进旨在开发病毒感染治疗方法的研究来改善动物护理。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A 3,847 square foot animal biosafety-level 3 laboratory at Utah State University serves NIH funded investigators involved in viral disease and antiviral therapy research. The laboratory has been hampered and threatened with closure due to repeated failure of the sole pass-through autoclave supporting the laboratory. To better serve the needs of the researchers and minimize the impact of autoclave failure on current and future viral disease studies, we propose to install an additional pass-through autoclave. This second autoclave will increase decontamination capacity and, more importantly, provide redundancy to ensure continuous laboratory operation. This in turn will improve animal care by ensuring that research animals will not need to be euthanized unnecessarily, and by advancing research aimed at developing treatment for viral infections.