Research Facility to House More Mice

The UNC-CH Board of Trustees approved the project Thursday with the goal of alleviating a "shortage of laboratory rodent housing on the main campus" -- a problem identified by the UNC-CH Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine.

According to documents from the meeting, the project will be funded by private gifts from the UNC-CH School of Medicine that were earmarked specifically for the facility.

The project will add about 10,000 square feet of modular mouse housing units at the existing Animal Resources Center, which is located on a University-owned property 14 miles from main campus, documents state.

Dwight Bellinger, director of the Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine, said the need for the new facility is immediate. "This new project is very important for our division because if no new space is available in a year or so, we will be literally out of space," he said. "We won't be able to expand or grow."

Bellinger said his division is responsible for the care of all animals on campus and that it works with virtually all departments on campus that use animals for research.

He said the mice are primarily used for disease investigation. Researchers can manipulate genes in the mice to test medications, such as how protein use can alter blood pressure.

"In disease investigation, researchers can discover what a protein can do to a body, and we can make mice that will help us target drugs that will help with diseases," Bellinger said.

Steve Pomeroy, assistant director of the laboratory animal medicine division, said mice and rats constitute 95 percent of animals used in the clinical research department, with the remainder including dogs, cats, pigeons and guinea pigs.

Pomeroy said the division uses 11 facilities on campus, allowing only about 8,000 square feet of space. Each facility's cages have individual areas of ventilation in a climate-controlled facility. The proposed additions would maintain the same standards as the campus facilities.

"If things continue to grow as they have been, we will soon outgrow our facilities, and since more and more research is returning to using mice, the new project will be extremely beneficial," Pomeroy said.

Bellinger said the proposal, which would add 10,000 cages, is now subject to a final evaluation by Woolpert LLP, a Charlotte engineering firm. UNC-CH hired the firm to survey the site, a process Bellinger said might take up to six months.

Although the UNC system is in the midst of a budget crisis, Bellinger said because the project will be funded by private gifts and does not conflict with funding for projects such as student housing, the expense of the project is justified.

"The firm will decide whether this will or will not happen or will happen on a smaller scale," Bellinger said.

"But this project as presented to the BOT is exactly what our needs will be in a year or two."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.