The University of Florida continues to improve and centralize its animal resource program to provide the best possible environment for scientific inquiry, quality care to laboratory animals, efficiency, and a safe work environment. We propose installing a dry heat sterilizer in the Cancer Genetics Research Center (CGRC) animal facility to provide redundancy and to expand our sterilization capacity for processing rodent cages in CGRC animal facility. This facility houses the majority of the mouse boxes at the University of Florida, which includes mice housed in the centralized rodent breeding facility and our transgenic core. A dry heat sterilizer was selected for the following reasons: (1) Less cost to and time to install than the steam autoclave;(2) less expensive to maintain;(3) minimal heat load and moisture added to the space;and (4) uses less energy and (5) no water when compared to a steam autoclave.
