The racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States of America (USA) are attributed to a combination of cultural, environmental, socioeconomic, and genetic factors. Effective strategies to reduce these disparities necessitate a combination of clinical and basic science approaches. The use of animal models to emulate specific human disorders can assist in the delineation of selected components of complex disorders; in most cases, these disorders have evaded clinical efforts to elucidate the underlying pathophysiology. To harness the potential of the Drew to reduce these disparities, this application is directed toward the physical enhancement and appropriate modification of the Drew animal care facility to support ongoing research and to develop a transgenic-phenotyping mouse facility. The facility upgrade is needed to meet regulatory requirements (e.g., resources for animal housing and sanitation), and to provide a centralized, comprehensive, efficient and well-managed rodent animal research program to meet the expansion of funded research on transgenic rodents. The transgenic phenotyping mouse facility is focused on metabolic diseases and is complimentary to the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Clinical Center for Research Excellence at Drew, which focuses on the clinical correlates of metabolic diseases.
The specific aims of this application are to: 1) enhance the animal care infrastructure through a major equipment upgrade of the animal care facility cage washing system and waste management operations to meet regulatory requirements and optimize the quality of animal research; and 2) create a state-of-the-art transgenic phenotyping mouse facility that will focus on metabolic diseases and compliment the clinical research activities at Drew. This will include the addition of a super mouse micro-isolator rack to accommodate Drew's growing transaenic mice colonies.
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