Cornell opens $55 million comprehensive animal care facility

Ithaca, NY - 7/2/07 - Cornell University opened the East Campus Research Facility (ECRF), a premier animal care and use facility that has a key role in the school's $600 million New Life Sciences Initiative.

Five years in the making, the 79,000 square-foot consolidated animal research building, located at the College of Veterinary Medicine, is expected to be fully operational by the fall.

"As we approach the sesquicentennial of Cornell University in 2015, we can be fully confident of our capacity to be the comparative academic medical center for Cornell University, with strengths in both veterinary and biomedical sciences and with strong ties to both the physical and biological sciences at Cornell," says Donald F. Smith, Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine. "Though veterinarians and biomedical scientists in our college will comprise a substantial contingent of its users, the collaboration among these individuals will ensure that this is truly a building for all of Cornell's life sciences."

Featuring state-of-the-art cage-washing and storage rooms, ECRF has strict safety protocols for preventing the cross-contamination of about 45,000 mice and other animals, including chickens, woodchucks, rats, guinea pigs and hamsters.