Emory University seeks to advance as a leading institution in discovery and research. Research at Emory has flourished as our institutional rank among universities with NIH awarded grants has increased 10 places (from 32nd) since 1996 to 22nd in 2005. This growth in the research enterprise has been primarily through PHS sponsored research and, where animal models are used, with mice. Given this dynamic, the key to the productivity and retention of our resident scientists and recruitment of top tier biomedical investigators are research resources, including support for large numbers of mice at low cost. Emory University has in the past 6 years constructed or renovated a total of 81,829 GSF of animal research facilities increasing overall capacity by 76% to 146,424 GSF and at a total cost of $24,788,797. To compliment these resources, we seek to acquire 15 rodent ventilated caging systems with 140 cage (840 mouse) capacity each and automated water supply to build foremost upon this momentum of expansion and the associated need for more mouse caging that it has created. The purchase of these cages will allow for higher density mouse housing at lower cost for Emory investigators and with significant benefits to the application of NIH grant dollars. These caging systems will enable up to $122,640 annual cost savings passed on to investigators and will directly support the work of 158 scientists using mice with $40.6M direct costs in 208 currently funded PHS grants and with 34 PHS grants for $7M pending.
