Project Summary/Abstract: Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a regional comprehensive institution located in southcentral Kentucky that is a member of the Kentucky INBRE program. Since the inception of WKU in joining KY INBRE in 2002, a number of faculty members have been successful in receiving funding from NIH and in training undergraduate students to perform biomedical research. The objective of the Alteration and Renovation project outlined herein is to enhance and maintain the research capacity of WKU to enable high-quality research in the fields of microbiology, genetics, physiology, and neurobiology. More specifically, this proposal requests to replace and upgrade essential "workhorse" research equipment (an autoclave, cage/bottle washer) located on the third floor of the Engineering and Biological Sciences (EBS) building that are in disrepair and obsolete (spare parts are no longer made to service these units). The old autoclave and cage/bottle washer are located in the WKU Biotechnology Center (2,172 sq. ft) and the WKU Vivarium (1,726 sq. ft), respectively, on the third floor of EBS. The current autoclave in the WKU Biotechnology Center is currently nonfunctional which has created unnecessary delays and barriers to conducting research. The current cage/bottle washer is still operational but will likely fail in the next several years. These needed upgrades will directly affect one WKU faculty member with a current NIH R15 grant who relies heavily upon a working cage/bottle washer to maintain a mouse colony, five other WKU faculty members that are currently or previously funded by KY INBRE and/or NIH, and 20-25 undergraduate students that work with these faculty members to carry out biomedically relevant research. In addition, the Ogden College of Science and Engineering at WKU is currently developing a new Neuroscience major that will attract new students interested in biomedical research. In developing the curriculum for this new major, there is a need for potentially new faculty hires in the fields of Behavioral Neuroscience and Systems Neuroscience. If these new hires plan to utilize rodent models, then it is necessary that a fully functioning cage/bottle washer be available for use. These needed upgrades to basic (yet essential) research equipment will enable current and future faculty, staff, and students to continue to carry out high-quality biological research with equipment that is reliable and working properly.