The first phase, a 21-story tower that has been in operation for a year, has 550,000 gsf. The tower includes wet laboratories, office, conference and support space, and the multi-floor vivarium.  The second phase, expected to be completed by early 2010, will occupy 135,000 gsf and will include additional rodent housing for the vivarium, a small animal imaging lab, and additional laboratory space.

The upgrade was needed because researchers’ use of mouse models to study a variety of diseases is increasing, says Dr. Neil Lipman, director of MSKCC’s Research Animal Resource Center. MSKCC’s mouse population has more than quadrupled in 10 years, from 7,000 cages to more than 30,000. The research facility works with nearby Weill Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University as well. The facility replaces a laboratory building built in the 1960s, which was considerably smaller.

“Our program is of the highest quality, so we wanted a facility that would be sophisticated enough to support it,” Lipman explains.

A Design Developed with Specific Functions in Mind

The project was designed with three main functions in mind: flexibility, programmatic operations, and ergonomics (matching equipment with the staff). It is important to understand how the vivarium was integrated into the building design with respect to vertical circulation. Vivarium access is through a single bank of elevators. Staff leaving the vivarium return to their laboratories with animals by way of another elevator bank which serves secure laboratory areas on each floor.

“We have a very precise operational concept which we have developed over the years that led to many of the decisions in the design,” says Lipman.

A typical lab floor in the tower has two sets of elevators—one for offices, the other for laboratories. People must have a card to access the secure, lab side of the building.

Vivarium staff are segregated by responsibility into three groups: clean cagewash, soiled cagewash, and barrier. Each group is provided with two sets of lockers so they can change from street clothing, including shoes, into dedicated uniforms and footwear. Research staff enters the facility through a different staging area, where they don a disposable lab coat and cap and use an automated shoe cleaner before passing through an air shower.

State-of-the-art shoe cleaners use brushes and solenoids connected to a vacuum system to remove and whisk particulate off staff shoes before they enter the barrier. This particulate is carried to the dirtiest part of the facility, the soiled cagewash area, where it accumulates in vacuum canisters for subsequent removal.

Cagewash and barrier staff are provided separate break and rest rooms to minimize cross-contamination.

Research personnel returning to the laboratory with animals (only one-way transport allowed) use airlocks connected to service elevators that take them to the secure labs.  The facility has another elevator for internal staff use between two floors and the cagewash center has its own sets of elevators—a clean set and a soiled set. The floor containing the cagewash center also has an adjoining biocontainment suite. In the second phase, a higher level rodent barrier will be constructed adjacent to the clean cagewash, and therefore can be served directly.

In the animal receiving area, animals arrive outside of the barrier. They are passed into the barrier through a Class II biological safety cabinet using appropriate techniques.

Not Your Typical Vivarium

The MSKCC vivarium includes four aquatic holding rooms, 64 large and small animal holding rooms, both small and large animal imaging suites, a large animal surgical facility, rodent quarantine suite and rederivation laboratory, cagewash and support, animal receiving, 18 procedure rooms, three biocontainment suites, and office space.

“We needed to have capacity for about 40,000 cages, so it’s a large facility,” says Lipman. “Our goal is to have tremendous flexibility because we don’t know what the future of science will hold. Secondly, we have to utilize the space as efficiently as we can; as the cost of construction is very high and space is at a premium in New York City.”

The various parts of the vivarium house unique, leading-edge components, many of them related to MSKCC’s intensive biosecurity program.

Materials including irradiated feed and bedding are autoclaved prior to distribution into the cagewash facility and barrier. There is a large bulk sterilizer adjacent to the building’s receiving dock to decontaminate bulk bedding bags before they are distributed by a pneumatic system to equipment in the clean cagewash area. All chemicals used in the facility are distributed from a bulk chemical storage area in a similar location. All bedding waste is moved pneumatically from the soiled cagewash area four floors below to a centrally located compactor.

The clean cagewash area is considered the most pristine because if clean materials become contaminated with infectious agents they would be distributed throughout the vivarium. MSKCC has developed a process to flash sterilize bags of irradiated feed to ensure the bags’ surface is free of biological contaminants.

Automation Addresses Ergonomic Issues and Productivity

The facility uses select automation and limited robotics like the aforementioned automatic dispensers. The cagewash areas have full video integration with LCD camera screens. Staff on either side of cagewash can observe what’s happening on the other side.

“This is very useful. Cagewash staff operating either end of a belt-washer know what’s going on and can communicate with hand signals,” says Lipman.

Automation includes two tunnel washer lines with automatic bedding dispensing from above. A robotic bottle processing system uncrates, washes, crates, and refills bottles with acidified water.  A double length, double-wide rack washer is used to sanitize larger equipment.

The vivarium’s semi-automatic bottle handling system, which provides back-up and redundancy to the fully automated system, requires staff handling but improves efficiency and ergonomics. The machine uncaps rows of five bottles at one time. The basket is then dumped over an integrated sink and the integral stainless steel caps and sipper tubes are collected in a basket below. The basket containing the caps goes through a two-stage ultrasonic cleaning process before placement along with the bottle baskets into the tunnel washer. On the other side of the tunnel an equivalent semi-automatic system fills and re-caps the bottles.

Another unique feature is automated rodent euthanasia racks positioned throughout the facility.  They operate as a standard, ventilated rack. When the rack is filled, the trained staff activate the rack which fills the cages with carbon dioxide.

“This is a humane, reliable, and efficient way to euthanize rodents,” Lipman notes.

Some of the facility’s large animal holding rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art video equipment. Some rooms have screens to show videos for psychological enrichment. Cameras can also monitor and record animals for behavioral studies or for evaluation.

Biocontainment Suites Designed for Flexibility

MSKCC’s project includes an area that can be divided into three biocontainment suites, each with five to seven cubicles. Control of the suite access points allows the suites to be expanded or contracted based on biocontainment needs.

“Our biocontainment suite was designed for the ultimate in flexibility,” explains Lipman.

The area is equipped with remote video monitoring. Red glazing on the cubicles prevents inappropriate wave length light from getting in.

The cubicles themselves have a flexible design. MSKCC can operate them at lower-level containment with ventilated caging systems, where rack exhaust effluent is captured through a fitting equipped with an iris damper into the building’s exhaust system. For high-containment studies, staff removes the ventilated caging systems and closes the iris dampers. This results in exhaust being drawn from slot registers located on the back wall of the cubicle in front of which racks with static cages are placed.

Rodent Quarantine Suite and Rederivation Lab Ensures Biosecurity

A large rodent quarantine suite with a contiguous rederivation laboratory allows MSKCC to introduce rodents from atypical sources from around the globe into its facility. The facility operates at BSL-2+. All materials coming out of the area are autoclaved before being transported to the cagewash for processing. A dedicated airlock is provided for animals and materials entering the suite. The suite is outfitted with windows looking onto a corridor, so the staff doesn’t feel isolated.

Animals are housed in one of six holding rooms in specially designed ventilated caging systems while they are tested for infectious agents. The ventilated caging system contains seven shelves with a glass flip-down door. Each shelf contains seven ventilated cages. Cages can be operated using positive or negative pressure with respect to the air pressure within the plenum and separated by the shelf enclosure. The enclosed shelf can be operated using positive or negative pressure with respect to the room.

“This allows us to deal with large numbers of shipments and isolate them as well as we can without using multiple rooms,” he says.

Staff members working in the area have a separate dedicated locker room. The rederivation lab is connected to one of the animal holding rooms through a pass-through cabinet with interlocking doors. This room houses animals serving as embryo donors and allows embryo transfer rederivation to occur in the laboratory.

Prototyping Lessens the Transition

MSKCC didn’t encounter major problems during the planning, construction, or phasing-in stages of its project, Lipman says. The vision was prototyped at another Sloan-Kettering facility first.

“We had the ability to prototype a lot of the features, therefore we’re pleased with the end result.”

The planning phase had communication issues due to the number of firms involved with such a large project, Lipman says. Ideally, he would reduce the number of firms, but that may not be possible in a building so large.

“I think being aware of the communication issues and making sure all parties share information appropriately is essential. Having a single person or firm take the lead and serve as an information conduit is ideal. Be hyper-vigilant to the issue,” he suggests.

An exhaust issue that arose from the temporary housing of rodents in the large animal housing area could have been addressed differently, Lipman says, even though the problem will be resolved once phase two is completed. The area is not equipped for scavenging exhaust from the ventilated racks. As MSKCC routinely exhausts ventilated rack effluent into its building exhaust systems, the research staff has complained about the odors.

“If I had to do it again I probably would have spent the additional money to exhaust the racks, even though it is a temporary issue.”

Lipman says the facility’s automation effectiveness remains to be determined. The robotic bottle system has not performed as robustly as the research center would like, but it’s too soon to say that the system should be avoided.

While he is happy with the shoe cleaners’ effectiveness, some staff feel more comfortable with the visible cleanliness offered by shoe covers. The vacuum shoe cleaners were the latest technology available at the time, but a new automated shoe cover dispenser is on the horizon.

“I would certainly give that careful consideration if I were designing a new barrier facility where I wanted foot protection.”

Only time will tell if MSKCC’s new research facility was worth the huge investment.

“We certainly think it was worth it,” says Lipman. “The facility has been very well received. People like working in it and using it.”

By Taitia Shelow