We request funds to modernize the electric service, the emergency electrical power, and replace the diet preparation kitchen at the Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory (SARL) at Oregon State University. The 17,000 sq. ft. SARL was built 46 years ago and provides capabilities found nowhere else in the world to support biomedical research and training in aquatic vertebrate models. Aquatic vertebrate models of human biology are rapidly emerging as a rapid, cost effective, and powerful research platform for biomedical studies. Among its notable research accomplishments, the SARL was essential for completing the two largest ultralow dosage carcinogenesis studies ever conducted in any vertebrate species (~42,000 trout) and helped identify alfatoxin as a major human carcinogen. The Facility has recently received an NIH RC4 Director's grant to further develop new robotics and automation to enable zebrafish to become the first vertebrate model organism capable of high throughput and high-content screening. Other equipment recently acquired for SARL, including automated liquid handling, robotic sample processing and analysis, and high content imaging instrumentation, has greatly added to the capacity for studying the pharmacologic, safety and toxicological effects of nanomaterials, drugs, and other environmental chemicals in zebrafish. SARL has achieved a number of milestones to place it in the forefront of zebrafish research. These include: """"""""the first and only specific pathogen-free zebrafish facility,"""""""" the first defined diet for zebrafish, """"""""a standardized outbred SPF """"""""wild-type"""""""" zebrafish,"""""""" multiple innovative technologies to automate breeding and zebrafish handling. SARL currently houses 24 researchers plus staff and supports $5.2 million in direct costs of federal research in 2010. The SARL facility also supports the training of many students, post- docs and veterinarians in the use of aquatic models. Two T32 training grants are based upon the unique capabilities of the SARL facility: a new training grant for veterinarians (DVM) to earn the Ph.D., and the 36-year T32 Toxicology Training grant at OSU. The requested funds will enable the completion of a seven-year remodeling program to rebuild a core facility will supporting the largest vertebrate experiments ever conducted. The requested emergency power system and new electrical service is necessary to protect fish health and to prevent disruption of long-term experiments. The diet kitchen remodeling is necessary to protect the food supply for the large numbers of animals maintained in the facility as well as to allow custom-defined diets to be prepared on site. This will add to SARL's unique capabilities to probe the effects of nutritional deficiencies to be investigated in zebrafish.
