The University of Southern California has demonstrated its commitment to scientific research aimed at understanding the foundations of human disease and to translational research aimed at improving human health. As we have expanded animal based research within our AAALAC-accredited animal care and use program to meet these goals, our research volume has grown to the point where the demand for housing animals, particularly mice, has reached the capacity of our existing animal facilities. We already have significant annual funding for biomedical research using mouse models and we are making every effort to maintain an upward trajectory of our biomedical research programs, many of which will use mice. On our two campuses, mouse cage numbers have increased dramatically in recent years. Furthermore, we expect this dramatic increase in mouse census to continue in the coming years. Therefore, continued investment in our animal research facility capacity to house mice will be necessary to prevent constraining future growth in research and future faculty recruitment for those investigators requiring mouse models. This project will leverage our significant investment in the construction of new biomedical research laboratory buildings and in improvements in existing animal research facilities. Despite these significant investments, we expect that we will need additional capacity to house mice in the coming years. For this reason, we are requesting mouse caging and equipment from your institute to house our rapidly expanding mouse census in high density individually ventilated racks. These racks and cages will be used immediately upon receipt in our existing facilities, which will not require any renovation to use this equipment. This equipment will greatly enhance the environmental quality for the animals housed, improve worker safety, and increase operational efficiency of these facilities. The use of this caging system represents a green and sustainable technology due to lowered water usage for cage washing and reduced used bedding disposal. This equipment will be absolutely necessary to support our future biomedical research programs.