The Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) opened its doors in 1964 and since that time the facilities have been continuously improved, renovated, and modernized to maintain state-of-the-art laboratory and animal procedure and housing space. As part of our philosophy of continuous assessment and improvement, a team of biosafety personnel, veterinarians, animal care staff and facilities services personnel have identified a need to significantly increase throughput and redundancy of nonhuman primate caging decontamination in our BSL3 Regional Biosafety Laboratory (RBL) facility. This process improvement is essential to meet the demands of infectious disease research programs that require the use of BSL3 containment. Currently, one autoclave is present in the RBL with the capacity to sterilize nonhuman primate cage racks. Autoclave throughput is a significant limitation in the cage decontamination process and the limited throughput from the single cage-rack capable autoclave has resulted in the need to use vacant animal rooms for contaminated cage staging and delays in initiation of new studies. Further delays in the sanitation process occur when preventive maintenance and repairs are necessary which take the single autoclave offline. This administrative supplement to the TNPRC P51 (OD011104) will provide funding to purchase an additional state of the art autoclave for the RBL that is capable of sterilizing nonhuman primate caging racks. Funds for renovation to remove an existing, rarely used, small chamber autoclave to create space for the new equipment will come from other TNPRC sources, specifically the TNPRC Director?s recruitment package. The additional autoclave will double the current cage processing throughput and redundancy, and enable the ABSL3 facility to work at peak efficiency. The work proposed in this application will benefit investigators utilizing the facility by enhancing animal resource management, improving biosafety, and increasing the rate which new, funded studies can be initiated in the ABSL3. The improvements proposed in this application will also improve the provision of animal resources across the TNPRC campus by minimizing the number of animals staged in ABSL2 awaiting transfer to the ABSL3.
Decontamination of equipment used in BSL3 agent infection studies is required to prevent cross contamination of agents between animals on different studies, minimize occupational health risk to personnel, and maintain regulatory compliance. Installation of an additional high capacity autoclave will increase efficiency and redundancy in the decontamination process, thereby increasing safety for animals and personnel, and improving scientific outcome and rigor for infectious disease studies involving BSL3 agents.
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