This revised application requests funds to renovate a portion of the Kettering Laboratory as part of a long range plan to modernize and consolidate animal facilities. Not only will the renovation improve operating efficiency by consolidating more animal rooms on ore floor, but the design of the new rooms will incorporate features such as nonaspirating linear air supply diffusers, dual intensity lighting, and wrist operated faucets, not found in existing rooms. An important part of this plan is the construction of six 233 NSF rooms in place of two 675 NSF rooms providing a greatly enhanced capability to manage animals of different species, source, or health status and to deal with outbreaks of infection"""""""". Funds are also requested with which to equip the animals facilities with devices that will significantly enhance the disease control, sanitation, and training programs, including drinking tube washers, wastebagging stations, enclosed waste trucks, biosafety cabinets, high pressure sprayers, storage dollies, and rabbit cages. The significance of these objectives lies in the large peer reviewed research program that needs the animal facilities. Among the existing research projects at MSKCC in which animals play a vital role are: gene therapy in nonhuman primates, gene expression in transgenic mice, regulation and function of the immune system, and the role of growth factors and their receptors in tumor biology, all of which rely heavily on a continuous supply of healthy animals. From these and other animal studies have come new chemotherapeutic agents, improved bone marrow transplantation, and the promise of therapies based on DNA technology and the use of cytokines. Our doctoral and postdoctoral training programs are complementary to the research and also depend on high quality animal care programs. Consistent with this strong commitment to research. MSKCC has heavily invested its own funds in 1982 and the Spring of 1988. The benefits to be derived from our long-range plan of consolidation and modernization of the animal care facilities include improved efficiency, public safety, and control of infectious agents.
