National Jewish Medical and Research Center is a small, private, non-profit hospital that has developed an international reputation as the top Respiratory Hospital in the United States the past 10 years according to U.S. News and World Report. To add to the prestige of the institution, National Jewish researchers have an impressive success rate with NIH grant funding for an institution of its size. Many of these investigators use animal models in their work. Currently, greater than 75% of the Principal Investigators using the Biological Resource Center (BRC) have funding through the PHS. This funding mainly supports research with genetically modified mouse models. Due to the requirement to breed and maintain these models on site, there has been an explosion of the mouse population. In addition, there has been heavy recruitment to the institution to fulfill the goals of the 10 year Strategic Plan unveiled in the spring of 2007. Together, these factors have led to crowding in general and BSL-2 level housing in the BRC. Crowding is expected to worsen over the next 2-3 years due to additional faculty recruitment and increases in existing research programs. To ensure the highest quality of care, National Jewish has put over a million dollars into improvements of the BRC over the past 2 years and is planning on spending an additional half million dollars over the next 1-2 years. However, additional funding beyond this is difficult to secure as resources are tight across the entire institution, due to projects resulting from the Strategic Plan. Therefore, this application seeks to enhance the improvements that National Jewish has already made over the past 2 years, and is planning to make over the next 1-2 years, by requesting funds for an additional bulk sterilizer, biological safety cabinets, and high density ventilated caging and racks.
