Alterations and Renovations

University Of North Dakota, Grand Forks ND

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DACCOTA-Alterations and Renovations Summary: Over the last few years, institutions in North and South Dakota have made tremendous efforts to expand infrastructure to conduct biomedical research. However, as the number of investigators has grown, space in the animal facility has become a limiting factor. Requests from partner institutions like the Fargo VA to conduct collaborative research have also been handicapped by this limitation. To solve this problem and accommodate researchers in the new medical school building, a satellite vivarium was built. However, because this building was entirely state-funded, a legislative mandate capped capital costs for the entire building until one year after occupancy. This caused additional constraints, and the decision was made to forgo a cage washer in the satellite vivarium. This decision was meant to represent the middle ground between no increase in space and exceeding the budget, but in practicality, it created a bottleneck. As a result, many researchers were forced to use disposable cages for their experiments (especially when using breeding pairs, animals exposed to infectious agents, or nude mice injected with cancer cells). To address this issue we plan to renovate the existing animal space including the addition of a cage washer to be used by researchers involved in this CTR grant. We also plan to build a permanent home for the clinical research center that is adjacent to the current wet clinical lab space, thereby increased efficiency and productivity.