? The Weill Cornell Medical Center (WCMC) is seeking shared federal support for a $ 4.5 million project to execute Phase I of a three-year multi-phase $ 33.4 million Animal Facility Master Plan to improve and expand the animal facilities serving WCMC's rapidly growing AAALAC-accredited animal resource program. Implementation of the Master Plan will increase WCMC's current mouse housing capacity from 7,400 to 25,000 cages providing sufficient housing capacity for the next eight to ten years. The expansion in housing capacity is achieved through allocation of an additional 5,050 gross square feet (GSF) as well as enhancing the utilization of existing space. The plan will realign the program such that space availability for housing and utilization of select species will be in close proximity to the laboratories which utilize them. Phase I consists of an extensive renovation of 7,830 GSF on the 3 rd floor of the S building providing a state-of-the-art animal facility containing a large animal surgical suite, six animal holding rooms, three animal procedure rooms, necropsy, and a cage wash center. The relocation of the large animal surgical program, as well as a major component of WCMC's large animal housing space, to the 3 ra floor of the S building will bring the large animal model development and use program into space contiguous with the Citigroup Biomedical Imaging Center. This area is used to support large animal models along with the Belfer Gene Therapy Core facility located on the 9 th and 10 th floors of the S building. ? ?
