? The Medical College of Georgia (MCG) is Georgia's premiere state health institution with Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Allied Health, Dentistry, and Graduate Studies. MCG also has top notch Medical (lustration and Physician's Assistant programs. In fiscal year 2004, the College received $44.8M in NIH research awards. This was a 21.5% increase from 2003. and 175% increase from 1999. In 2005, extramural grant and contract support for research, education, and service totaled $237.1 million. Of this, nearly, $80 million was in support of the institution's research activities. Of this $80 million, 39% involved the use of animals. Areas of research emphasis include cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infection and inflammation, and neurological disease. The PHS research of 76 faculty members rely on the College's animal care program, Laboratory Animal Services (LAS) and will benefit from funding of this proposal. ? ? MCG is requesting funding to purchase a new tunnel washer for the animal facility in the Carl Sanders Research and Education (R&E) building which houses the majority of the research animals on campus The tunnel washer is over-used and frequently breaks down, resulting in delays in housing rodents in clean cages. This puts a burden on the principal investigators because they frequently have to reschedule experiments around cage changing depending on whether the machine is working. It does not reach 180 degrees every run so batches must be re-run delaying research time. ? ? ?
