The University of Kentucky (UK) Division of Laboratory Animal Resources (DLAR) requests $484,475 to purchase individually ventilated caging (IVC) and animal transfer stations. This proposal will equip 3 rooms in a suite of 4 presently unoccupied rodent housing rooms with shared procedure rooms and provide desperately needed caging capacity in the newly constructed Biological-Pharmaceutical (Bio-Pharm) Building animal facility. The Bio-Pharm facility is a modern research facility and the largest academic and research building in the State of Kentucky. The facility was constructed and the lower four levels (basement- animal facility and NMR facility, floors 1&2-academic instruction, floor 3- research) outfitted with state funding. The fourth and fifth research laboratory floors are presently being completed with university funding with an anticipated March 2011 occupancy. These two floors will support an increased emphasis on research in the College of Pharmacy and expansion of cancer related research at the university. Additional successful investigators are presently being recruited for these areas of emphasis. The requested caging will maximize potential housing capabilities and provide optimal animal housing environments while reducing labor requirements for these additional investigators. The additional caging capability will also permit NIH-funded UK investigators to move their mouse housing from the nearby Lexington Veterans Administration (Lexington VA) facility to UK facilities that are much closer to their laboratories. This relocation will reduce the transport of animals from the Lexington VA to UK research laboratories, a process that jeopardizes animal biosecurity and exposes patients at the Lexington VA Hospital, the UK A. B. Chandler Medical Center, and the UK Clinic (outpatient facility) to rodent allergens and potentially infectious agents. The acquisition of the requested caging will permit the university to maximize use of the newly constructed animal facility and improve the ability of the university to support NIH-funded investigators using mice in biomedical research.
