Upgrading infectious disease research facilities at University of Louisville RBL

University Of Louisville, Louisville KY

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Louisville Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL) is an operational unit of the University?s Center for Predictive Medicine for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (CPM). The CPM operates the only Biosafety Level 3 laboratories and animal research facilities available to researchers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We request support from NIAID through this proposal for additional facility related upgrades and modernization of research equipment. We propose three Specific Aims. First, we shall repair, renovate and modernize specific RBL building systems to enhance functions of the research facilities. We shall upgrade critical building systems?the vivarium cage washers; controls for the autoclaves and lighting systems. We shall upgrade the building?s camera video surveillance quality. Replacing piping on the processed chilled water loop is necessary to ensure proper operations of the autoclaves in all seasons. We intend to replace the pass-through boxes between BSL-3 and ABSL-3 spaces that currently require treating the whole BSL-3 and ABSL-3 areas as one space. These building systems upgrades will secure functional biocontainment research facilities that allow us to prevent, prepare for and respond to infectious disease outbreaks for the next decade and beyond. Secondly, we propose to enhance and modernize the CPM in vivo research facilities, and thirdly to enhance and modernize our in vitro research capabilities. We shall achieve our second aim by significantly upgrading our vivarium caging systems through purchasing metabolic isocaging systems that will allow us to derive significantly greater detail of physiological responses to emerging infectious disease in murine models. We shall augment our in vivo research capabilities with new imaging equipment, telemetry systems and plethysmography instrumentation that together allow fine granularity of data acquisition, improving our understanding of infectious disease, and assisting in discovery of vaccines and therapeutics against biothreats and emerging infectious diseases. This equipment achieves major goals of humane in vivo research: more comprehensive and detailed information about the infectious disease model and effect of therapy, closely linked with reduction in the number of research subjects necessary for comprehensive assessment of the treatment efficacy. Upgrades of the in vitro research equipment will be through acquisition of a high throughput spinning disc confocal microscopy instrument that allows rapid collection of high quality and high resolution quantitative data under normal cell and tissue incubation conditions, and a flow cytometry analyzer with high throughout capabilities that will significantly expand the throughput and complexity of data acquisition. The equipment upgrades will modernize our research infrastructure, enhancing the CPM RBL capabilities to rapidly develop and assist in deployment of countermeasures to mitigate the effects of biothreats and emerging infectious diseases.