Event Schedule

What you will learn:
Participants will come away with a basic understanding of the terminology, concepts, processes, standards, numbers, types of equipment, and furniture (as applicable) involved in the planning and design of animal research labs and support space including related mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. 

Who should attend:
This course is designed for those involved in the planning, design, construction, or operation of animal research laboratories including project managers, architects, facility engineers, construction engineers, facility managers, facility planners, biosafety professionals, EH&S personnel, veterinarians, and researchers employed at colleges and universities, medical facilities, pharmaceutical facilities, A/E/C firms, government health centers, and public health labs.

Space is limited and enrollment is subject to approval.

Cost:
$1,300 Fundamentals Course only
$1,100 with registration to the two-day conference immediately following
(Fees include course materials, continental breakfast refreshment breaks, and lunch)

Join us for a hosted beer and wine bar along with light snacks.

Attendees may sign-in and pick up their registration materials here, or the next morning at the conference ballroom foyer.

Guests welcome.

See the full list of participating exhibitors and event hosts.

Translational research pipelines accelerate or stall based on the infrastructure connecting animal studies to clinical application—and institutions that treat the vivarium as a support function rather than a strategic asset tend to find out too late. Joe Petrosino and Rebecca Blackwood describe how BCM positioned its new vivarium as the operational foundation of an integrated ecosystem including CGMP manufacturing, preclinical development, and early-phase clinical research. They outline the planning criteria used to determine scale, program mix, and departmental adjacencies, and address how leadership secured stakeholder alignment around a capital investment framed as a driver of institutional research competitiveness.

VIDO has recently completed a BSL-3Ag to BSL-4 conversion and is commissioning a new 43,000-square-foot BSL-2Ag multi-species animal facility — together establishing in vivo and in vitro capability across containment levels 2 through 4, a GMP-qualified vaccine development facility, and a permanent NHP colony. Cam Ewart shares the challenges, last-minute complications, and practical lessons learned from delivering both projects, offering ground-level insight for institutions navigating the design and construction demands of high-containment agricultural research facilities at the frontier of translational vaccine development.

Research programs evolve faster than buildings — and facilities that cannot adapt create both operational and recruitment problems for the institutions they serve. Session leaders present the latest innovative designs for holding rooms, procedure spaces, and behavioral study areas that allow rapid reconfiguration in response to shifting scientific demands. They illustrate solutions for integrating natural light and exterior views into staff circulation zones while preserving rigorous light control in sensitive animal areas, demonstrating how thoughtful facility expansion can simultaneously increase programmatic capacity, strengthen regulatory compliance, and meaningfully improve the daily working environment for animal care staff.

Modern animal research facilities face mounting operational pressures that rarely arrive in isolation: chronic staffing shortages demanding labor-efficient systems, constrained footprints requiring higher caging density, ambitious sustainability mandates targeting measurable energy reduction, and persistent occupational allergen risks affecting staff health. This session presents a real-world equipment integration case study demonstrating how a unified platform simultaneously addresses all four challenges. Through documented outcomes in density optimization, labor efficiency, energy consumption reduction, and allergen mitigation, presenters set out a replicable decision framework for evaluating integrated equipment investments that advance operational resilience, environmental stewardship, and occupational health in a single coordinated approach.

Siloed vivarium layouts do more than limit communication—they create inefficiency, mpede safety, slow decision-making, and undermine the workforce cohesion that sustains a high-performing animal care program. Robin Kastenmayer presents the design philosophy behind AstraZeneca's new Kendall Square vivarium, where a centralized operations hub surrounded by specialized procedure rooms replaced the fragmented room-by-room model of the prior facility. She details how integrated digital displays, shared KPI visibility, protocol alerts, and structured cross-functional gatherings translate space design into measurable improvements in coordination, compliance communication, staff recognition, and the scientific outcomes that depend on a connected, informed team.

Vivarium automation is not a single technology — it is a connected ecosystem of physical and digital systems that reshapes how facilities operate, how data flows, and how research gets done. Brian Bilecki maps the full scope of automation across animal rooms, support spaces, and facility workflows, from cage-level environmental monitoring and automated census tracking to cage wash robotics and unified control infrastructure. He advises on where to start, how to sequence investments, and how facility design — organized around functional cores like biocontainment, breeding, and behavioral research — enables automation to deliver durable operational and scientific returns.

With the FDA and NIH accelerating their push toward New Approach Methodologies — and federal funding cuts already increasing pressure on animal research programs — the question isn't whether animal research facilities need to accommodate non-animal models. It's how to build that flexibility in from the start. Michele Cunneen presents a design framework for facilities that can pivot between live animal work and in vitro systems without major renovations. She explores modular mechanical strategies, utility planning, and barrier adjacencies that preserve optionality. She also explains why full animal model replacement within five years remains an unrealistic planning assumption despite current policy momentum.

The fluorescent-to-LED transition is not a simple swap—it is an infrastructure decision with direct consequences for animal physiology, behavioral research validity, and regulatory compliance. John Hasenau and Ira Rothman define the metrics that matter in research animal environments, including Melanopic Equivalent Daylight Illuminance, Color Fidelity, and Color Gamut, and present findings from a recent AALAS survey on LED adoption and its barriers across the field. Together, they equip design and facilities teams with a protocol-driven evaluation framework for selecting lighting systems that protect scientific integrity, support occupant welfare, and navigate a shifting manufacturing supply chain.

(Guests welcome)

Courtesy of Tradeline

Wall and door protection in vivarium facilities is most effective — and most cost-efficient — when it is designed in from the start, not specified as an afterthought once the damage patterns become obvious. Session leaders present the collaborative protection strategy developed for Brown University's Danoff Laboratories vivarium, where architects, vendors, and contractors engaged early to develop a unified system of walls, doors, and hardware tailored to actual traffic patterns, equipment movement, and operational conditions. The session traces how that early coordination produced protection details that standard specifications alone would not have captured — and how the resulting system reduces long-term maintenance burden, contamination risk, and costly remediation

Renovating an occupied biomedical research facility while animal studies remain active is among the highest-stakes operational challenges a research institution can face—and informal coordination is rarely sufficient. Phil LaTourette and Dawn Hidenfelter detail the integrated monitoring and communication strategy deployed during a multi-million-dollar renovation of a mid-century urban research building. They lay out an approach combining pre-construction baseline assessment, targeted sensor deployment in critical vivarium zones, automated real-time data integration, and a structured stakeholder communication framework spanning IACUC engagement, faculty updates, and daily construction coordination. They provide lessons learned, and document the results achieved in animal welfare and research continuity.

In high-containment animal facilities, an unplanned shutdown is never just an inconvenience — it can derail months of research and trigger compliance exposure. Jason Tearle presents a risk-based scheduling framework that synchronizes preventive maintenance, statutory inspections, and planned shutdowns with active animal study timelines, minimizing facility downtime without compromising safety or regulatory standing. Drawing on operational experience in Pirbright's high-containment environments, he outlines the coordination protocols, communication structures, and decision criteria that align engineering, animal care, and research teams around a shared maintenance calendar — turning a persistent operational tension into a managed, predictable process.

Constrained sites, prohibitive construction timelines, and urgent demands for operational research space are pushing institutions to rethink conventional delivery — and modular construction is proving to be a serious long-term infrastructure strategy, not a stopgap. United Therapeutics' experience scaling a pioneering research program through phased modular construction — from a startup vivarium unit to a permanent facility engineered for 30-year longevity — offers a replicable framework for institutions navigating similar pressures. Session leaders examine the real advantages in cost certainty, schedule compression, and sustainability performance, and address the permitting complexity and stakeholder misconceptions that remain the primary barriers to broader adoption.

Vivarium owners are asking for more — better space efficiency, smarter workflows, lower long-term costs — and integrated project delivery is proving to be one of the most powerful tools for getting there. Using Brown University's 16,000-cage Danoff vivarium as a case study, session leaders share how bringing owner stakeholders, architect, and contractor together from day one generated innovative solutions in equipment selection, space planning, and construction sequencing that a traditional siloed process simply would not have surfaced. The result is a facility that outperforms conventional benchmarks on efficiency and long-term operability — and a replicable model for institutions ready to demand more from their project teams.

Research programs evolve faster than buildings — and facilities that cannot adapt create both operational and recruitment problems for the institutions they serve. Session leaders present the latest innovative designs for holding rooms, procedure spaces, and behavioral study areas that allow rapid reconfiguration in response to shifting scientific demands. They illustrate solutions for integrating natural light and exterior views into staff circulation zones while preserving rigorous light control in sensitive animal areas, demonstrating how thoughtful facility expansion can simultaneously increase programmatic capacity, strengthen regulatory compliance, and meaningfully improve the daily working environment for animal care staff.

This panel brings together social science-based workplace research, enterprise capital planning, and data-driven governance. The audience is invited to share their own experience alongside the panelists, grounding expert insight in the room’s real-world context.