# New Vivarium to Expand Biomedical Research Capacity at Ohio University

> **NIH NIH C06** · OHIO UNIVERSITY ATHENS · 2024 · $8,000,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Ohio University (OHIO) is an Institution of Emerging Excellence committed to conducting focused
biomedical research. Through establishment and strengthening of two research institutes (the Diabetes
Institute/DI and the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute/OMNI) over the past two decades, OHIO
has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to integrating clinical education, patient care, and research to
help residents and trainees directly confront the local and global challenges of obesity, diabetes, pain, and
aging in place. Recent strategic investments have strengthened the research environment within these
institutes and, consequently, bolstered the overall biomedical research portfolio of the entire university. In fact,
these two institutes are responsible for over half of the university’s NIH funding portfolio and include a cadre of
successful, multidisciplinary scientists conducting basic, clinical, and population health research. As a result of
recent expansions and funding successes in the DI and OMNI, there is now an urgent need to improve the
outdated biomedical research facilities and infrastructure at OHIO. To that end, the institution has secured $67
million dollars (most of the funding required) for a new biomedical research facility, named the Heritage
Translational Research Center (HTRC). The HTRC will foster collaborative research among institute members
by consolidating research currently fragmented across numerous buildings on campus and promote
collaboration between basic and clinical scientists to bolster translational research. This new facility will also
move research efforts to spaces that are purpose-built for research and vacate aging buildings that are no
longer appropriate for conducting modern biomedical sciences. This C06 project seeks to specifically fund the
construction of a vivarium within the top floor of the HTRC to support the activities of the animal-based
researchers of DI and OMNI. The new vivarium will provide OHIO with a contemporary animal housing facility
and replace an existing vivarium in an aged facility, expanding capacity (increasing total mouse cages by
64%), efficiency, and biosecurity as well as augment procedural and shared equipment space to support
rodent research. A major impact of the HTRC animal facility will be to support current and future NIH-funded
projects by OHIO researchers, facilitate external collaborations that rely on the novel mice or mouse tissues
generated by DI or OMNI investigators, and attract future, planned faculty hires within these institutes. Aligned
with its educational mission, OHIO will also use this building to train graduate, undergraduate and medical
students in animal models of disease. Completion of the new translational research facility at OHIO, which
relies on building the proposed animal facility, is expected to have a powerful and sustained impact on the
translational research efforts of DI and OMNI; their NIH-funded resear...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11016208
- **Project number:** 1C06OD037793-01
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO UNIVERSITY ATHENS
- **Principal Investigator:** DARLENE E BERRYMAN
- **Activity code:** C06 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $8,000,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-15 → 2029-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11016208

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11016208, New Vivarium to Expand Biomedical Research Capacity at Ohio University (1C06OD037793-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11016208. Licensed CC0.

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