Project Summary/Abstract This application's long-term objective is to improve the quality and efficiency of the future of laboratory animal care at the University of Minnesota (UMN) through its Research Animal Resources (RAR) shared facilities. NIH awards totaled more than $63,000,000 to UMN each year for animal-related studies. The goal of this specific proposal is to acquire modern, efficient tunnel washing instrumentation to protect and enhance research and investments, while positioning for future innovation of increased productivity and improved environmental sustainability. Biomedical animal research housed at RAR at UMN includes funded projects in neuroscience, genetics, brain disorders, bioengineering, rare diseases, biotechnology, biomedical imaging, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, women’s health, preventative medicine, infectious disease and many others. In all, 767 research projects and over 345 investigators currently depend on the high quality animal care at the Twin Cities Campus RAR facilities. Providing the highest quality, compliant and efficient animal care to facilitate research is an ongoing mission of the RAR. Due to extremely heavy and growing commitments for animal research at UMN and limitation in the availability of institutional funds over the past two years during the global pandemic, innovation and upgrades have been deferred for maintenance and we must defer the completion of our most innovative solutions. In this application we describe a critical need to overcome this bottleneck and achieve our long-term plan of automation and efficiency. This FOA will allow the UMN to address the funding of key unmet needs and position itself for future sustainable growth to meet the growing demands. This involves the replacement of old, maintenance intensive, inefficient and potentially deleterious tunnel washing equipment and the preparation of space required in order to properly accommodate the required function located in the MCB branch of RAR. This equipment will be installed to discharge sanitized cages through a "barrier", thus completely separating contaminated from clean housing components during the washing process and significantly improving throughput and reliability of the sanitization of cages and other equipment. Importantly, in alignment with other UMN initiatives, this new equipment will help UMN meet its energy efficiency goals as well as advancing sustainability goals in wastewater treatment. Improvements in speed and reliability of the sanitization of research materials and other equipment will improve both research capacity and quality. Furthermore, it will eliminate the need for staff to transport cages to other facilities, thereby contributing to risk mitigation and additional meaningful use of precious staff efforts. Finally, with a successful award, space occupied by the aging tunnel washing equipment will be compatible for future even more innovative plans being considered by the institution. This inclu...