Infrastructure for research on aging rodents: need for regional facilities to support transgenic studies on aging

I propose that North American investigators who depend largely on individual external grants would benefit from the creation of regional facilities designed to support studies of aging in transgenic models. In general, academic institutions cannot achieve the most cost effectiveness because their facilities are not designed for industrial-scale cost efficiencies. Regional facilities would also increase the reproducibility of experiments. Transgenic studies of prospective genes that modify the risk of Alzheimer and other outcomes of aging could be carried out under standard conditions of nutrition and caging density, which can influence brain structure and behavior. The regional labs should have a strong Pathology Core, which would go far beyond the resources usually available to academic researchers. A national system of regional facilities with Core labs for characterizing genetics, hormones, and pathology would greatly accelerate progress.