The Jackson Laboratory, the world's foremost non-profit institution for mouse-based genetics research, headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine, is establishing a new West Coast collaboration with UC Davis. This program will complement the campus's growing Mouse Biology Program. The Jackson Laboratory portion of the collaborative program, to be known as JAX Research Systems at UC Davis, will produce and maintain genetically customized laboratory mice, which will be made available to researchers at UC Davis and throughout the western United States. "The mouse is the preeminent tool for understanding gene function in the context of the whole mammalian organism, with direct benefit to both human and veterinary medicine," said Stephen Barthold, director of the UC Davis Center for Comparative Medicine and director of the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program. "The unique collaborative scientific and clinical programs between the schools of medicine and veterinary medicine at UC Davis will be greatly enhanced by this partnership with the Jackson Laboratory." "This program--along with a major expansion of our facilities in Bar Harbor--will help us continue to meet the rapidly growing nationwide demand for JAX mice," said Warren Cook, president of JAX Research Systems. "By developing the new facility at UC Davis, the Jackson Laboratory will be providing one of the West Coast's largest biomedical research institutions with the resources it needs, and both institutions will benefit from increased scientific collaboration." The new alliance was developed in response to efforts by the National Institutes of Health to increase funding and build infrastructure for mouse-based research, which is critically important to human biomedical research, according to Barthold and Cook. The mice produced at the facility will include transgenic mice, with genes inserted to produce given physical traits useful in studying the genetic origin and development of a variety of human and animal diseases. Production of such mice has occurred for years in individual labs across the UC Davis campus. In 1997, the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program was established to help consolidate those efforts and strengthen campuswide collaboration in the studies of how genes function in the whole animal. "This new partnership with the Jackson Laboratory will advance the original goals of the Mouse Biology Program and will provide UC Davis researchers with ready access to the research animals they need," Barthold said. "Furthermore, we estimate that the new program will result in savings of about $350,000 to the campus by lowering the cost of purchasing and maintaining mice for research." Under the terms of the collaborative agreement, the Jackson Laboratory will locate three of its employees at the UC Davis facility to administer and operate many of the technical aspects of the jointly administered programs. Animal health technicians currently employed in the campuswide Mouse Biology Program will be transferred to the new facility to care for the mice. UC Davis personnel also will provide veterinary services, and UC Davis' Veterinary Genetics Laboratory will genetically characterize the mice. The Center for Comparative Medicine, jointly sponsored by the schools of medicine and veterinary medicine, is the administrative home for the Mouse Biology Program and will foster a major program for the comparative pathology of genetically customized mice. The new collaboration will roughly double the number of genetically altered research mice on campus, bringing the total to 20,000 to 30,000 mice. The mice will be housed in existing campus buildings, which will be renovated and operational by the first of the year. A 10,000-square-foot structure, Building M-3, will house the mice at the UC Davis Animal Resources Service, located on Old Davis Road south of Interstate 80. Plans also are under way for renovating Building M-2, a second structure of equal size. Both buildings will be remodeled to provide sophisticated microbiologic and environmental barrier protection for the valuable mouse colonies. A portion of this complex houses the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program Targeted Genomics Laboratory, which will be operated in collaboration with the Jackson Laboratory. The Targeted Genomics Laboratory, directed by UC Davis veterinarian Kent Lloyd of the Center for Comparative Medicine, can import, rederive by embryo transfer, cryopreserve, and create transgenic and targeted gene mice for UC Davis investigators. No hazardous agents, chemicals or radioisotopes will be used in the mouse facilities. Half of the complex will be devoted to Jackson Laboratory mice and the other half to UC Davis mice. The Jackson Laboratory program will breed and distribute common inbred strains of mice to research institutions in the western United States and will import and maintain small colonies of mice. Officials at both UC Davis and the Jackson Laboratory expect the new alliance also will spawn collaborative research opportunities between scientists at both institutions and new graduate-student training programs on campus.