Joseph B. Martin - US grants

building /facility design /renovation; biomedical facility;

Research on Infectious Disease has been and remains a major component of the research program at the New England Regional Primate Research Center. The Center's multi-disciplinary program focuses on AIDS and encompasses activities to the Divisions of Microbiology, Pathology, and Immunology, along with an extensive group of collaborative and affiliated scientists. Our infectious disease program has extensive support from NIH and its success is fundamentally dependent on the Center's biocontainment clinical and animal housing facilities. Investigator grant support and animal utilization have taxed our ability to provide the necessary support to them, especially the last three years. The overall goal of this proposal is to improve three important biocontainment resource areas to facilitate infectious disease research and capitalize on two expansion initiatives currently in progress. Those resources are: 1) We will expand and modernize our clinical procedure capabilities with needed equipment to provide the sophisticated services required by long-term studies and studies involving invasive procedures; 2) We will increase our biocontainment caging capacity to minimize the possibility that a lack of appropriate housing will impede research; 3) We will enhance our biocontainment infrastructure to improve animal care and biosafety in order to maintain a reliable, healthy colony of primates. These improvements will greatly improve NERPRC's ability to achieve its resource mission and our investigators' ability to achieve this research aims.

The Center will pursue a multidisciplinary biomedical research program which will take advantage of those unique characteristics of nonhuman primates which lend themselves to the solution of human health and societal problems. This objective will be approached through: 1. Supporting a core staff of scientists with necessary resources to conduct exemplary basic and applied biomedical research on human physiology and diseases of national importance. The core scientific program will stress: infectious disease with emphasis on pathogenesis and prophylaxis of lentiviruses and acquired immunodeficiency disease; basic immunology; basis for the oncogenicity of herpesviruses; pathophysiology of myocardial hypertrophy and heart failure, myocardial ischemia and hypertension; reproductive biology; behavioral and neurochemical basis for drug addition; neurodegenerative diseases to include Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. 2. Serving as a resource for collaborative, affiliated and visiting scientists from the biomedical community at large for the conduct of nonhuman primate-dependent, approved research programs. 3. Pursuit of a program in primatology to further our understanding of characteristics of nonhuman primates with respect to their behavior, physiology, diseases, husbandry, breeding and genetics. Emphasis will be place don those characteristics which offer potential as future models for the study of human health and disease and those characteristics which must be better understood to assure the well-being, health and availability of nonhuman primates for biomedical research. 4. Support of the resources and infrastructure necessary to maintain and operate a Center, to include facilities and maintenance of colonies of appropriate species on nonhuman primates to provide for the animal resources needs of the research programs.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The NERPRC maintains both Animal Biosafety Level two (ABSL2) and ABSL3 facilities in support of a highly successful AIDS-related infectious disease research program. There are currently 11 core staff and 23 collaborative scientists with PHS-funded independent research awards that are assigned and house animals in the NERPRC biocontainment facilities. In 2001, an additional 92 investigators benefited from the NERPRC biocontainment facilities through collaborative studies or access to blood, tissues or other biological samples. Currently, 61 percent of all animals housed in the NERPRC facilities are assigned to non-core staff collaborative scientists. Harvard University recognizes this regional resource mission and has supported the AIDS-related infectious disease program through three major initiatives designed to improve and expand biocontainment-related infrastructure. Despite these improvements, the biocontainment facilities are inadequate to support the current demand for such specialized housing. The overall goal of this application is to expand biocontainment housing and improve existing infrastructure in order to support ongoing AIDS-related programs and increase access to core and collaborative scientists. The application will directly support the regional resource mission of the NERPRC and promote the availability and efficient utilization of resources by investigators conducting PHS-funded AIDS-related research. In 2002, a 35,000 sq. ft. Harvard University funded veterinary hospital and animal housing facility was completed at the NERPRC. Through movement of two substantial New World primate breeding colonies, this building has freed space in the existing research building 3 (RSB3) which will now be converted to an ABSL2 facility and used in support of the infectious disease research goals. Caging and clinical care infrastructure equipment will be required to take advantage of this vacated space and expand ABSL2 housing and research service support.