Vivarium Modernization with Digital Ventilated Cages to Enhance Research Capacity and Reproducibility, and Provide Cage Environment Monitoring for Improved Operational Efficiency and Animal Welfare

ABSTRACT We are seeking support to purchase and install an integrated digital ventilated cage system to enhance operational efficacy and modernize and strengthen the research-supporting operations of an existing, more than twenty-five-year-old shared-use ABSL3 facility. This FOA is timely, since the addition of the integrated Digital Ventilated Cage (DVC®) system we are requesting would synergize with our ongoing institutional strategic plan to modernize existing vivarium facilities, and have broad benefits for the institutional research community. The static microisolator caging system currently in use is suboptimal and antiquated and cannot meet the current or future needs of the large number of investigators from different disciplines performing ABSL3 work with animals infected with SAR2-Covid, SARS-Covid variants and other BL3 agents. The DVC® is a unique and revolutionary home-cage monitoring system composed of a mix of electronics and software components to collect a set of information directly from the home cage. We selected this system with the goals of 1) improving the shared-use facility operational efficiency and 2) enhancing animal welfare management. Furthermore, 3) the unique detection system collects extrinsic environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, noise and vibration, human intervention, etc.) in the home cages. These factors are likely to have effects on experiments using animals and reporting them in publications as a general practice could contribute to improved research quality (rigor and reproducibility). The modernization of an outdated ABSL3 facility to a more secure one containing a state-of-the-art integrated digital ventilated cage system in two animal housing rooms. This equipment modernization will combine and potentially synergize with institutionally-funded modernization efforts slated to be completed within the next six months - for example, the modernized animal housing caging system will be located in rooms adjacent to and with direct access to a modernized BL3 suite for tissue processing and specimen processing. Therefore, our proposed equipment modernization is a critical step towards meeting the needs of current and future investigators from diverse disciplines using rodent animal models for research involving an increasing number of BL3 pathogens.