This application requests $2 million from National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) to fit-out shell space on the seventh floor of the BSB Addition, and to upgrade sanitization and related support facilities in the existing BSB seventh floor animal facility, creating a state-of-the-art horizontally integrated rodent facility. The long-term objective is to expand MUSC's capacity for development and utilization of genetically engineered mouse models of human disease in national priority areas.
Specific Aims are: 1) to provide state-of-the-art rodent facilities conducive to increasing interaction, efficiency and productivity among investigators by centralizing the program for transgenic animals; 2) to provide five new animal holding suites and a transgenic laboratory suite in an AAALAC-accreditable animal facility with BSL2 capability; and 3) to renovate the existing BSB cage wash and autoclave area. The beneficiaries are MUSC faculty members in five different basic science departments who are conducting, cutting-edge research funded by 13 different institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will make it possible to facilitate recruitment of additional NIH-funded investigators who rely on animal models; remove constraints from present NIH-funded investigators who currently must design their experiments and methodology around available resources; accelerate the career development of junior investigators; improve research training opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows; make MUSC more competitive for institutional training grants by virtue of increased quality of faculty and trainees; and maintain accreditations for laboratory animal facilities. Total project cost is $4,212,617, of which the University's share is 53 percent.
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