Research on Infectious Disease has been and remains a major component of the research program at the New England Regional Primate Research Center. The Center's multi-disciplinary program focuses on AIDS and encompasses activities to the Divisions of Microbiology, Pathology, and Immunology, along with an extensive group of collaborative and affiliated scientists. Our infectious disease program has extensive support from NIH and its success is fundamentally dependent on the Center's biocontainment clinical and animal housing facilities. Investigator grant support and animal utilization have taxed our ability to provide the necessary support to them, especially the last three years. The overall goal of this proposal is to improve three important biocontainment resource areas to facilitate infectious disease research and capitalize on two expansion initiatives currently in progress. Those resources are: 1) We will expand and modernize our clinical procedure capabilities with needed equipment to provide the sophisticated services required by long-term studies and studies involving invasive procedures; 2) We will increase our biocontainment caging capacity to minimize the possibility that a lack of appropriate housing will impede research; 3) We will enhance our biocontainment infrastructure to improve animal care and biosafety in order to maintain a reliable, healthy colony of primates. These improvements will greatly improve NERPRC's ability to achieve its resource mission and our investigators' ability to achieve this research aims.
