The goal of this proposal is to maximize investigator utilization of a newly created Comprehensive Facility for Animal Imaging Research (CFAIR) of the Research Imaging Center (RIC) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA). This will be accomplished by renovating vivarium space in the McDermott Clinical Sciences Building into a flexible-use configuration, to give a wide range of investigational species access to CFAIR resources. CFAIR was jointly funded by: the NIH/NCRR Shared Instrumentation Grant program ($2.4 million);the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA;$4.1 million);the Emerging Technologies Fund (ETF) of the Office of the Governor of Texas ($4.1 million);the Emerging Technologies Matching Fund (ETMF) of the Vice Chancellor for Research of the University of Texas System ($2.0 million). Ongoing infrastructure funding sources include NIH/NCRR (CTSA Award), DARPA, Congressionally Mandated Research Directive (CMRD) and Texas State appropriations. CFAIR instrumentation includes: 1) 90-cm-bore, 3-Tesla Siemens TIM TRIO MRI/MRS;2) 25-cm-bore Concorde Focus 220 Primate PET camera;3) a 8-cm-bore Concorde R5 Rodent PET camera;4) 30-cm-bore 7-Tesla Bruker Biospec MRI/MRS;5) 16-cm-bore 11.7-Tesla Bruker Biospec MRI/MRS scanner;6) 16-cm-bore 7- Tesla Bruker Pharmascan MRI/MRS. This array of instruments can provide state-of-the-art structural and functional imaging for a wide range of investigational species, including: mice, rats, cats, rabbits, dogs, pigs, marmosets, macaques, baboons, all of which are in current or pending use by UTHSCSA investigators. Flexible-use configuration will allow access to advanced imaging methods to investigators using any and all of these species.
